6) “Gakkai Casts Voodoo Spells”
This section is full of what SG-eye does best: invasion of other peoples’ discussion, selecting a sentence or two from that discussion and lying by giving new meaning to the sentence.
SG-eye’s introduction to the section, though, is full of overt lies. This where it states that Fred Zaitsu was “unceremoniously removed from his position” which is so untrue it’s laughable.
And, SGI has never had “a campaign to use Buddhist prayers to cause misfortune among another religious group.” SGI and Nichiren Shoshu have fundamental differences about what it means to practice Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism, and about the roles of priests and laity in its propagation. SGI’s method of luring people out of Nichiren Shoshu and into the SGI is prayer and dialogue. Nichiren Shoshu’s method — on the Internet and elsewhere — is innuendo, outright lies, spreading of malicious rumor, and creative semantics such as we see throughout the SG-eye website. (And more, as we shall see in a minute.)
The actual aim of the SGI, in regard to Nichiren Shoshu, is summed up in one of the snippets SG-eye includes here:
Every morning with Gongyo, I pray for the perverted Buddhist doctrines of Nikken Abe to be totally discredited and defeated. I pray for the demise of the Nikken Sect and that the Nichiren Shoshu temple in the Bay Area be closed because of lack of support. I feel these are positive things. I am not praying for bad things to happen to people. I am praying for evil philosophy to be eliminated.In one its most transparent and silly attempts to make this fit its agenda of “SGI using Voodoo and infringing on freedom of religion”, SG-eye edited the above this way:
Every morning with Gongyo, I pray for the perverted Buddhist doctrines of Nikken Abe to be totally discredited and defeated. I pray for the demise of the Nikken Sect and that the Nichiren Shoshu temple in the Bay Area be closed because of lack of support. I feel these are positive things. I am not praying for bad things to happen to people. I am praying for evil philosophy to be eliminated.Evidently, SG-eye hopes you will read only the bold print.
In the same way, SG-eye includes this sentence:
“All I’ve ever heard about is SGI members chanting for temples to close — not the outlawing of a religion.”SG-eye edits it this way:
“All I’ve ever heard about is SGI members CHANTING for temples to close — not the outlawing of a religion.”That was written to ARBN in response to Nichiren Shoshu’s fabricated, but relentless, charge that SGI, through praying and discoursing, was somehow violating Nichiren Shoshu’s freedom of religion. It is just one sentence of a much longer post, and the point it was making was that, unlike the SGI, Nichiren Shoshu actually has tried to get the SGI outlawed in Japan:
Statement of OpinionNichiren Shoshu condemns the SGI for using prayer and dialogue to win a battle of ideas — while it itself has tried to win that battle by enlisting the force of government to eradicate a religion with which it disagrees.s at a site where a large meeting was about to be held.
The religious corporation Nichiren Shoshu wishes to state its opinion on the viability of Soka Gakkai as a religious corporation. As explained below, Nichiren Shoshu believes that the religious corporation Soka Gakkai is unqualified to hold that status as per the provisions of Japan's Religious Corporation Law.. . . ......Nichiren Shoshu therefore strongly requests the Minister of Education to take speedy action to disband the religious corporation Soka Gakkai. If this cannot be done, Nichiren Shoshu requests that the Minister at least take measures to have Soka Gakkai¹s bylaws altered to reflect its dissociation from Nichiren Shoshu.
Respectfully submitted on this day, November 18, 1996Abe Nikken, representative director (Chief Director)
[official seal affixed]
Fujimoto Nichijun, executive director (General Administrator)
[official seal affixed]
Yoshida Nichiyu, executive director (Director)
[official seal affixed]
Nichiren Shoshu, a religious corporation
2057 Kamijo Fujinomiya, Shizuoka
Names and seals of 720 other signatories appended
SG-eye, it is assumed, would have refrained from such crazy behavior, and just let the members sit through a few hours of unbearable stench.
More rebuttal of SG-eye: