Dear Spirit of Fire,
I'm trying to reply you in a respectful manner as much as possible, and if I happen to be unmindful or hurt you in anyway, please accept my apologies. I only mean to reply to your post, not to you as a person.
You tried to explain about the background, essence and so-called benefits of Nichiren's teaching as taught by the SGI (when nobody requested you to explain them), yet you DID NOT REPLY my qns at all.
You were unable to:
a) quote any part of the 2 chapters in Lotus Sutra, which states that monks/nuns are not necessary in this age; and
b) quote any part of the Lotus Sutra or any other sutra which states that faith in the Gohonzon leads to enlightenment.
Period.
Nichiren had been a highly controversial figure both when he was around and after he passed away. Several sects that branched out of Nichiren "Buddhism" also had a long history of political struggles and often displayed intolerance/ rejection of other Buddhist traditions. Well, just a simple point, if EVERY PERSON just needs to rely on TWO chapters of Lotus Sutra, then the Buddha might as well just teach the 2 chapters instead of wasting all his saliva to expound the rest of the chapters for Lotus Sutra and the Tripitakas etc.
There are a lot of reasons why SGI and Nichiren Shosho have generally not been recognized by mainstream Buddhist groups, but I have no wish to engage in long debates about it. People who are curious about Nichiren-based groups, the rights and wrongs of them, the validity etc... please feel free to find out more information on your own. I would also recommend the E-Sangha which provides rather objective representation of various views on the Nichiren-based faiths (http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/index.php?showforum=44).
I would like to remind you that in this forum, the SGI is not considered as an orthodox/recognized tradition, and the forum owner had made a clear announcement that all links with SGI would be banned from the forum. I quote the forum owner in his post:
I have made a descision after much consideration and discussions with my moderators and friends to ban all Soka Gakkai International (SGI) (and other unorthodox/unrecognised traditions) links from our forum ~ Buddhism: Wisdom Bliss ~. The tradition of Soka Gakkai is not recognised as part of mainstream Buddhism and was therefore removed.
However, he had been very kind to allow your posts and lengthy expressions of SGI teachings here for quite a while. Pls show due respect to the forum by refraining from posting SGI teachings here.
If you do wish to participate in forum discussions about SGI and its teachings, I would also suggest you join the E-Sangha, where they have a forum just for Nichiren Buddhism itself.