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Cultish BS to not recognize that they don't have any more special protection than any one else.
That's right. A short list of just a few of the events I personally witnessed:
- Two of the members of the district I was in in North Carolina were married. One night, he chased her down and shot her to death in a 7-11 parking lot.
- A devout WD District leader was married to a MD District leader (same district). He stopped attending district meetings with her at one point. Why? Oh, he decided it would be more fun to stay home and rape her 11-year-old daughter. He spend a few years in prison for that. Then that WD District leader's morbidly obese father started raping that same daughter. Yep, that's some proof of the protection of the mystic law!
- A Jt. Terr. WD leader I was quite connected with dropped dead in her late 50s. My last WD District leader dropped dead at about 48, after her unwed daughter had 3 babies by at least two different young and irresponsible men who then wanted nothing to do with her. PROTECTION!!
- Another devout WD member, former district leader, finally found her soul mate in another woman. WHO dropped dead less than a year after they started dating/sleeping together. During the "honeymoon phase," in other words. Before she announced she'd found someone she felt was much more "soul matey" than that former district leader. So she'll never get over it. Ever. The woman was only, like, 38.
- Same WD member as just above, 8-yr-old son was in a freak accident where 6 ribs and two low vertebrae were crushed. He'll never walk again. PROTECTION!!!
- Devout member got stomach cancer. Not sure of the details, except that she eschewed modern medicine in favor of "homeopathy". She died within a year.
- National leader David Aoyama killed in 9-11 attack on WTC - he was a passenger on one of the planes. PROTECTION!!
- National Culture Dept. leader Pascual Olivera got cancer - decided to quit chemo as he was completely confident that he'd beaten it. Said his doctors had announced "There is not a single cancer cell left in your entire body." Well, if they said that, they were *idiots*. Cancer comes from WITHIN your own body; it's not something you catch like strep throat. So Pascual and his wife danced the flamenco for President Ikeda to celebrate his "victory" over cancer. He was dead - of cancer - within 8 or 9 months. PROTECTION!!
- Study Department Chief and writer of the SGI's favorite book about how rotten the NS priesthood is/was, Shin Yatomi, dead within *months* of being diagnosed with cancer. Yippee!! Hooray for the protection of the Gohonzon!!
- Guy McCloskey, National-level MD leader, had a son who was a drug addict/dropout/gang member/all around shit-for-brains. Dead at, like, age 29 from a motorcycle accident after "finally getting his life turned around." Thanks for that second chance, Gohonzon! NOT!!!
And on and on AND ON it goes. Where is this marvelous protection? Oh, yeah, I know - it's in stories about some Japanese member who is never named, who had this or that "miraculous" whatever, details of which can never possibly be verified. Or some unspecified "Mr. X" had this or that, or I heard about a Japanese member who...go ahead and make up any details you like. Here are a couple of my favorites:
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This Japanese man moved to Canada and needed to get a job, but he only spoke Japanese! He went all over town handing over resumes and filling out job applications. Finally, he spent his last $3 on candles and determined to chant until they'd burned away. When the last flame went out, the phone rang - it was a job offer from one of the companies he'd contacted, and they were hiring a personal translator for him, too! AMAZING - AMIRITE??
A YWD in Japan determined that she was going to marry a millionaire. No - a billionaire. So she practiced hard and devoted herself to activities and the organization for 20 years - and she married a billionaire! YAY!!
Oops - I rolled my eyes so hard they fell right out of my head!
Did I tell you about the time that I ran across an old YWD information sheet about the kotekitai? This was in about 1988, mind you. Anyhow, it said that, in honor of the creation of the kotekitai, President Ikeda
INVENTED a brand new instrument, called a "FIFE"!!! AMAZING!!! Yeah, just forget all that crap you've heard about fifes having been around at the time of the Revolutionary War and all that other nonsense. The Great and Powerful Daisucky INVENTED FIFES!!! Yep - that's just how illustrious and buddhist he is. He invents brand new musical instruments despite not playing any and having no knowledge or training in any relevant related field.
And a more recent example: [
chantforabetterlife.wordpress.com]
David, huh? Annie? RIGHT!!!
SURE!!! Can we verify any of these details independently? No? Oh, right - "faith" *eye roll*
Look at this "example" that apparently comes from the SGI to try and scare people into willing their estates to the cult:
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Here is another fictionalized example. Mrs. Night was born in Japan and became an SGI member at an early age. After practicing for a few years, she married an American Air Force master sergeant. Sergeant and Mrs. Night moved to the United States, where Mrs. Night remained a devoted SGI-USA member. They had no children. Mr. Night retired from the Air Force and became a police officer. Later, he also retired from the police force. Mr. Night died at the age of 70. He had an old will from the Air Force which left everything to Mrs. Night. Mrs. Night lived a comfortable life and lovingly raised valuable exotic dogs. Unfortunately, Mrs. Night died suddenly, at the age of 80. Like many Japanese people of her era, she had no will.
The Public Administrator, the County official who takes care of the property of people dying without a will, inventoried Mrs. Night's property and found that she had a mortgage-free house, a Lincoln Town car, substantial cash savings, twenty samurai swords collected by Mr. Night and, of course, her dogs. The Public Administrator found that Mrs. Night's closest living heir was a cousin living in Japan.
The estate lawyer liquidated (sold-off) all Mrs. Night's property, including the dogs. The cousin-heir flew into town for one day and left with the estate proceeds of $529,607 the next day. The cousin said she had met Mrs. Night for fifteen minutes, forty years ago. According to the cousin, Mrs. Night had been shunned by her family in Japan for marrying an American and going against the family religion.
If Mrs. Night had proper advice from a lawyer of her own choosing, she might have made other choices about the distribution of her property. Would she have wanted her dogs to live out their lives in the home of a friend rather than the puppy mill? Would she have left something for the education of her best friend's children? After all, Mrs. Night often said that they were her real family. Would she have left her Town Car to the young man who drove her countless times to medical appointments and activities? Would she have made a gift to SGI, the organization she devoted thousands of hours to in life, where most of her friends practice, which conducted her marriage and funeral? [
americangongyo.org]
Get those official letters of resignation sent, people!
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The criminal attack is used as a shakabuku the world catch? Weird too.
Weird? Try "shameless and shallow appeal to a person's presumed desire for that 15 minutes of fame and a national spotlight and a Lifetime movie made about his life! It's obscene! "Look, this will make you a superstar!! That makes it THE BEST THING THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED TO YOU!! Right...?"
Like when my exboyfriend, when I found out that he'd been cheating on me, said that I should regard his cheating as "the best thing that could have happened to us," because "it gave us an opportunity to work on our relationship." Neat, huh? That means that I would be expected to regard every future time he cheated as "the best thing that could have happened to us"! Sorry, but that was just a little too much opportunity for work for me. I never liked work THAT much. So why put myself in that sort of bizarro situation? It's like how the SGI tells you that interacting with the people who annoy/irritate/upset you the most brings you the most benefit and the most opportunity for "human revolution." No, it doesn't. It simply means that you're going to be spending ever more of your limited time around people who annoy/irritate/upset you. Is that what you REALLY want?? Cause and effect, people.
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Confirmation bias galore in the members' illogical justifications for such events. I'm also of the opinion that the $GI CULT Org. numbers spiked in the NY area post 9-11. Same theme. Same modus operandi. Same manipulation. Same results (unfortunately).
So what? Christian churches likewise saw a surge of attendance increase - for just a few months. Then their attendance numbers dropped to below pre-9/11 levels.
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In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, millions of Americans flocked to churches and houses of worship.
But, for most, the shift in spiritual behavior was short lived.Fluctuation in church attendance after the 9-11 terrorist attacks:
There was a surge in church attendance after the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington on 2001-SEP-11. Some religious leaders predicted that the phenomenon would be short lived. Others saw it as the start of a major revival in the U.S. According to the New York Times, Franklin Graham, son of the well known Christian evangelist, Rev. Billy Graham, hailed it as an enduring turn toward God. On NOV-20, Fundamentalist Christian Pat Robertson said that the attack was "bringing about one of the greatest spiritual revivals in the history of America...People are turning to God. The churches are full." 8
It appears that, with the exception of the New York City area, the increase lasted only about two months. By 2001-NOV-26, attendance had returned to normal. The New York Times cites data from the Gallup Organization, which shows that religious attendance rose from 41% in 2001-MAY to 47% by 2001-SEP-21. By early November, attendance had sunk back to 42%.
The director of the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University, Robert Wuthnow, said that the terrorists' attacks have not changed the basic makeup of the U.S.:
About one in four of American adults is devoutly religious;
one in four is secular, and
the remaining half is mildly interested about religion.
Wuthnow said:
"We are in some ways a very religious country, especially compared to Western Europe. But we're of two minds, and the other mind is that we really are pretty secular. We are very much a country of consumers and shoppers, and we're quite materialistic. And as long as we can kind of paste together a sense of control through our ordinary work and our ordinary purchases, we're pretty happy to do that." 8
Rabbi Ronald S. Roth of West End Synagogue in Nashville, TN, said:
"We did see a larger influx for the holidays, and the mood was very intense. I can't say, however, that this increased interest in services has been sustained...When people face such a tragic and horrible event, they need comfort, they need community, they need to relate to their God and their traditions, and try to find a way to get through the pain. Once I think people got past some of the initial shock and difficulties, they started to get back to how it was before."
A poll conducted by Barna Research Group showed no increase in 11 of the 13 key measures of religiosity due to the terrorist attacks.
[
www.religioustolerance.org]
Keep in mind the "halo effect," where people exaggerate what they perceive as positive attributes that they believe will increase their status in others' eyes, while they minimize characteristics they regard as negative.
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Presser and Stinson found that many Americans were not at church when they claimed to be. Their best estimates are that the percentage of adults who actually attended religious services during the previous weekend dropped from 42% in 1965 to 26% in 1994.
Presser said:
"We asked people, tell us everything you did in the last 24 hours so we can know what chemicals you might have been exposed to. If somebody went to church, they ought to tell us, but if they didn't go, they shouldn't manufacture it. We didn't do what most polls of religious belief do, and ask, 'Did you go to church in the last seven days?,' which some might interpret as being asked whether they were good people and good Christians."
The Washington Post reported that the analysis
"reveals a discrepancy between the diaries and the polls, and suggests that many Americans have been misreporting how they spend their Sunday mornings, inflating estimates of church attendance by perhaps as much as a third."
American Atheists commented:
"The researchers also found that the percentage of Americans who lie about their attendance is increasing. Presser and Stinson described the 16-point drop off in church attendance 'really very striking'..."
If this study by Presser and Stinson is accurate, it would indicate a substantial drop in actual church attendance from the mid 1960s to the mid 1990s. Since the reported attendance has remained stuck at the magical 40% figure for decades, one might conclude that the rate of exaggeration of church attendance is increasing. Also, it would appear that polls are to be mistrusted. Nobody really knows what the percentage attendance is. To obtain accurate data, pollsters will have to abandon the comfortable task of polling opinion by phone and camp out in church, synagogue, and mosque parking lots so that they can count noses.
For example, no one really expects that they can get an accurate count of pedophiles and junkies by just asking people if they routinely diddle children or shoot up, do they?
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I pray to *whatever*, that an org leader has the decency NOT to say, "Something deep in your life caused this to happen".
Ho ho ho! Welcome to the board, PollyAnna! Of COURSE he will be told that, per Vice President Tsuji's timeless "guidance," "My karma FORCED THEM TO BEHAVE THAT WAY" O_O
Want to read it for yourself?
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Selfrealisation
> > - realise anew that for any external cause (nyoze-en) there is
> > first an internal cause (nyoze-in)
> > - any pain, anger, frustration, irritation or painful situation
> > that arises, is my responsability
> > -
my karma forced that to happen or forced them to behave in> >
that way> > -
hendoku iyaku: I can change poison into medicine> > - become aware of your 'internal' hooks that pulled such an
> > experience to you
> > -
I alone am responsible for elevating my lifecondition> >
> > Apology
> > - for my present slander in thought, word and deed
> > - that I no longer wish to do it
> > -
daimoku of altruism: chant for the health and wellbeing of the> >
persons involved and that they can deepen their faith.> > Ask the Gohonzon: 'What can I do to correct the situation?' [
groups.yahoo.com]
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