Talk:Soka Gakkai International/Archive12

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

January 2006

Pretty good edits, thanks for the work. Sorry to see the whole excommunication bit again, but at least it was failry neutral in its presentation. I haven't checked to see if you made the other pages yet, but I will. I saw the List of Cults page, and it seems like a fair trade. I think it could use some more explanation as to what each of those categories means, though. Must have been a lot of work! Thanks again for your efforts - Ruby--71.250.88.213 11:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I just deleted part of someone's recent addition. The text of their submission/revision was a web link (URL) with the following explanatory text:
(URL HERE) Copies of Gohonzons inscribed by Nichiren himself may be downloaded from the files section of (ANOTHER URL). Additional Nichiren-inscribed Gohonzons will be uploaded, as they are digitized and cleaned-up, on an on-going basis until all 128 extant Nichiren Gohonzons have been uploaded. High resolution copies are available for delivery by mail. The philosophy of this group is to free the Gohonzon from the control of the sects, some of which use bestowal of a Gohonzon as a means of exerting control over their membership. IF you object to the free distribution of copies of Gohonzons inscribed by Nichiren himself, then do not visit this group. However, if you wish to practice independently and want to get a Gohonzon without submitting to the control of a sect or organzation, this is your answer.
Okay, talk about your deliberately non-neutral POV. It's one thing to provide a web link; that's pretty fair. It's pretty unfair to blatantly advertise how swell the organization, page, opinion, or whatever that the web link is pointing to. It's even more heinous to promptly slag on the SGI itself by suggesting that people have "submitted to the control of a sect or organization".
By using what *seems* to be non-inflammatory language, this person (user 72.226.20.8) gives a sham appearance of being "fair". However, implicit in the notion is very non-neutral language against SGI. It doesn't belong in the Wiki article; it belongs on the so-called "middle of the road" web pages. When I get a chance to really read those pages, if they're not actually "middle of the road" in their viewpoint towards SGI (and let's face it, the attitude expressed by the writer certainly makes that look unlikely) then we'll have to move the web link that is left up to the "critics" section.
Once again, I urge that the SGI page in Wiki shouldn't be an advertisement for SGI; that's what people can go to the SGI web sites for. It shouldn't be an advertisement or opportunity for the critics to slag on SGI; that's what THEIR web pages are for. Provide the FACTS, not the opinion; proivde the web links; allow people to read the biased stuff on the biased sites (hey, sure, I'm an SGI member but I can admit that SGI's web site has pro-SGI bias) and give them links.
That's it, that's what belongs. I believe that we've moved a bit closer to redoing this article, with some new pages added; it doesn't seem that anyone who's been a regular for a while back in these discussions (which I do not count myself to be) has raised any major problems with the proposal. --Enumclaw 01:39, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
I just deleted the same passage from Nichiren Shoshu and Nichiren Buddhism as well. I agree with you on many points, especially the swipe at SGI suggesting that SGIers have "submitted to control," and the point that these pages ought not be used as advertisements space. But I have to say, I am a little confused by some of your comments, Enumclaw. Sometimes it sounds like you lump SGIers together in the same category as this guy, and you have not a little contempt for them. Why do you do that? There are always individuals who act inappropriately, as there have been here. But they are not "SGI" as a whole, and it seems that their behavior colors your view of the whole. That's not fair. It would be helpful to separate the individuals from the SGI label. And then chant for those individuals -- and for yourself.
Secondly, I think we are in error when we misconstrue having a belief system and sharing it with confidence, with "bias." Bias means to have "A preference or an inclination especially one that inhibits impartial judgment," "An unfair act or policy stemming from prejudice." or "To influence in a particular, typically unfair direction; prejudice." (Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company). Or "a personal and often unreasoned judgment for or against one side in a dispute : PREJUDICE" (Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, © 1996 Merriam-Webster, Inc). I don't believe that these fit what the SGI sites are trying to put forth, or what SGI is about in general, nor does it fit many, if not most, people who belong to SGI.
I understand your desire to maintain a neutral position - but aren't you sacrificing yourself and SGI in the attempt? Just a little? I am not suggesting that we ought never criticize - just that webe fair in doing so. Having a position or belief, presenting that position or belief is not necessarily holding a bias as defined above, and I for one, think it is a little unfair to suggest that that is so in this case.
At any rate, my comment regarding this same passage on the downloadable Gohonzons was as follows:
"==Deleted Promotional Material==
I deleted this section, as it is a blatant promotional piece. It has no place in this article. However, should it be rephrased, it would be of interest as part of the general set of descriptions of various forms of Nichiren Buddhism."'
Peace - Ruby----71.250.88.213 05:15, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Maybe, we should create a link for them as their thoughts are worth considering. Sometime, people will more or less realise that there's still a cold war between SGI and Nichiren Shoshu and will probably look for a sanctuary somewhere. Just my two cents of thought.-Gammadion 21:30, 22 January 2006 (UTC)


I can understand your point - its really so unfortunate that this is going on. But at the same time, I'm not sure that the solution is withdrawal from the fray. Unlike the real cold war, where the ultimate outcome was truly destructive, this is a war of ideas where dialog is the weapon of choice. Uncomfortable and difficult as it may be, don't you think this might be resolved without simply opting out of the "system?" Its kind of like choosing not to vote because one is not pleased with either candidate. Ultimately, that is self defeating, since one will win either way - perhaps it is better to take your vote and then use it to move the party from within...? - Ruby--68.45.57.193 06:19, 28 January 2006 (UTC)


How y'all doing?
These people aren't withdrawing from the fray. They're saying they want to be associated with neither the pot nor the kettle black—a perspective I can identify with, though I don't think it's correct. Nonetheless, if people want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, that's up to them.
That aside, the promotional material doesn't belong here, though links to the websites and discussion boards are probably best left in with a note that there is another point of view. The idea of NPOV on Wikipedia is not that no points of view should be represented, it's that all possible ones should be described without bias for any—which means qualifications like "sites making unfounded criticisms" are also inappropriate. Best regards, Jim_Lockhart 09:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Jim captured what I saw as the main problem with the material I removed. It's not because the material had a point of view; that's fine, they're entitled to it. What irritated me was that they tried to masquerade as "NPOV" while flat-out slagging on SGI, in what's supposed to be a NPOV article about SGI.

In my opinion, the proper place for those folks would be through a link at the bottom of the article about Nichiren Buddhism, since they are practicing a form of Nichiren's Buddhism, not a SGI-endorsed Buddhist practice. It seems to me that a fair, NPOV arrangement for the entire thing would be something along the lines of this (in outline form):

1) RELIGION

   A) Buddhism
      1) Therevada Buddhism
      2) Mahanyana Buddhism
         a) Nichiren Buddhism
            1) Nichiren Shoshu
            2) Nichiren Shu
            3) SGI
            4) Other schools (Honmon Butsuryu Shu, Kempon Hokke Shu, Hokkeshu, etc)
            5) Independent or less-formally-organized practitioners

You see, it seems to me that if we step back and quit focussing on the individual trees, the forest that appears in our field of view is the overall Nichiren Buddhism family. And beyond that, the family of all Buddhism. In my idealistic world, then, each article for a given organization/group would stick to "just the facts, ma'am" and given an overview of that organization/group's practice, history, and basics of their belief.

As soon as you start getting into trying to define the actual bits of theology that differentiate between, say, the Nichiren Shu folks and the SGI folks, well, that's when you start getting into the realm of NPOV problems, as exhibited in the text of the stuff that I deleted.

From the Nichiren Shu member's POV, for an SGI member to view Nichiren as a Buddha is outrageously wrong; it's hard for that POV to *not* come through in an article about SGI if they (the Nichrien Shu member) are writing or editing it. In fact, to them, they can't understand why any "fair" discussion of SGI doesn't include that. Likewise, for the SGI member looking at/editing/writing an article on Nichiren Shu, they can't understand how on earth it doesn't slag on the Shu for, say, selling copies of gohonzon in stores or whatever.

This, then, is the challenge for us Wikipedians; keeping the articles with enough information to be useful and differentiate between the various Nichiren schools, and giving a fair discussion and explanation of the links betwen them and the differences and history between them (particularly, in this instance, the issues between the Nichiren Shoshu and the SGI)... but not letting the articles slide into slagging on one or another organization/group in a slanted POV manner.

How do we do it? Beats me.  :) No, seriously, we're in the process right now. Take a moment and pat yourself on the back for trying to do it in a fair manner.

Cheers, Paul --Enumclaw 19:54, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

February–March 2006

Well, Paul, you've captured it pretty well. I would make the following changes to your map (and these are minor quibbles), but otherwise I pretty much agree with you.

1) RELIGION
   A) Buddhism
      1) Therevada Buddhism
      2) Mahanyana Buddhism
         a) Nichiren Buddhism
            1) Minobu/Kuon-ji (Mimbe Niko) line
               A) Nichiren Shu
                  1 Schools with roots in Nichiren Shu
               C) Other schools now affiliated with Nichiren Shu
                  but previously independent (Ikegami line, etc.)
               B) Other, spinter groups
            2) Fuji/Komon (Byakuren Nikko) line
               A) Nichiren Shoshu
                  1 Myoshinko/Kenshokai
                  2 Shoshinkai
                  3 Soka Gakkai/SGI
                  4 Other, splinter groups
               B) Kitayama Honmon-ji line
               C) Kyoto Yobo-ji
               D) etc... (there were/are eight of them)
            3) Other major school affilliated with neither Nichiren Shu
               nor Nichiren Shoshu (Honmon Butsuryu Shu, Kempon Hokke Shu,
               Hokkeshu, etc)
            5) Lay-only or less-formally organized practitioner groups

I think Paul has already found the solution to not letting the articles slide into a mud-slinging contest: avoid the temptation to criticize other groups, or even to directly respond to things they've written about themselves. If someone writes something patently false as a statement of fact, someone else should call them on the carpet for it; if we describe ("group ABC believes this way"), not assert ("group ABC is this way"), we should be okay. Note, though, that when we characterize; use scare quotes and qualifiers such as so-called, sarcasm, or ridicule; or directly criticize a description as if it were an assertion, we fall into the point-of-view/bias trap. Also, because people can follow the record of edits and even discussions here almost indefinitely, when we misstep the proper bounds or even resort to personal attacks, we discredit ourselves and perhaps even the groups we're associated with. On the group that posted the Wikispam, I think they were more or less slagging all organized groups, not just SGI. Best regards to all, Jim_Lockhart 15:56, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I concur on the Wikispam comment- those guys hit every Nichiren Buddhist page that I saw.
As far as the organization goes, I intentionally tried to leave it a bit more broad (and my suggested outline was not really complete). For example, I didn't put SGI as a "daughter" group or a subgroup of Nichiren Shoshu, because I fear that people might take offense; I think they might think it somehow implies that SGI is "lesser" somehow.
(Personally, I think that since SGI is basically Shoshu in flavor, with overall huge agreement on the theology and practices, and only a few differences in terms of how they look at things, that your proposed outline is excellent; nonetheless, I think that if it's outlined that way some people might take offense in the future.)
But I really like how your outline is more time-based, and showing more of a heritage. If people understand that an outline isn't meant to indicate "importance" but instead just kind of show "heritage" (more like a family tree), then perhaps it wouldn't be a problem. It's merely an organizational tool, rather than something indicating who's got more adherants or whatever.
My desired end-state would be something that would hopefully be both good enough that it wouldn't need a lot of changes in the future, and it would also be good enough to not tempt people into making tons of changes. Additionally, if people can see (by reading through these many talk pages) that the folks who set up the various Nichiren-based-Buddhism pages were really trying to keep the various flame wars off of the pages and give each group or sub-group a fair reading on their own page, hopefully that would keep those with an axe to grind from coming in and making wholesale changes ("Nichiren Shoshu sucks, and they wear funny hats!" or "SGI practices mind control!" types of slanders).
I think we're getting there, I really do. Again, everyone who's been at this for any length of time deserves a pat on the back; just a little light reading online will demonstrate to all that this can become an issue where people have vicious flame wars that go on forever and leave nobody satisfied.
There's a huge difference, in my mind, between vigorously debating what one considers to be slander against the Law, and simply being able to agree to disagree when it comes to what should be a neutral forum. There's nothing wrong with either; each group's Wiki page should provide enough links that the debate/remonstration against the slanderers is available to anyone who wants to go into that kind of detail.
But let's all hope and agree that Wikipedia is just NOT the place for that debate; it'll make life easier in the long run.
Cheers, Paul --Enumclaw 18:46, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
PS Can whoever knows how to archive cut some more of the page down? It's getting long again. Feel free to remove this remark as well.

Archiving done. Paul, your reading of my outline is correct: it is intended primarilly to be chronologically ordered; that the lineages generally fall into place is incidental. I gets more complicated, though, as you (generic you) get closer to the present, especially in the late 19th century and then again in the 1930s—in the 19th century because of political pressure to rid Japanese religion of "foreign" influence (i.e., Buddhism—the historical term is called Haibutsu Kishaku 廃仏毀釈, and there is some explanation at Shinbutsu Bunri), and in the 1903s and 40s because of government pressure for all Buddhist sects to amalgamate under school-based umbrella organizations. (None of this needs to go into the SGI article—it's just FYI information.) Later Jim_Lockhart 03:32, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Wow, a lot have changed in the article since I last visited. Apologies, guys and gals, as I am now more concentrated in the science and technology area of wikipedia due to my studies. However, I feel that we can still more concise in the article area as I still feel a lot of "pro-Soka" elements popping up from time to time in the main article. I feel that Ruby, Jim and R have really gone through a lot making the article neutral. Anyway, do you think that certain parts of the main article should be removed and linked to the correct article? Nicheren Dashonin's life story to the Nicheren Article and Doctrines and Practices particular to SGI to Nicheren Buddhism? Thank you all.-Gammadion 08:33, 28 March 2006 (UTC)