Chess!!??

by Lilycurly 37 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Finally-Free

  That's why I always play antichess, where the object of the game is to lose. It helps me turn all my latent aggression on myself.

  W
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  daystar

  defd

  Please let us know what you find, regardless of what that is.
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  defd

  ok I will
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  City Fan

  Here's a great website to practice chess:

  http://turbulence.org/spotlight/thinking/
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  blondie

  Does anyone remember what was happening in the chess world in 1972 and 1973?

  Robert James "Bobby" Fischer (born March 9, 1943) is a former world chess champion, who on September 1, 1972, became the only American to win the FIDE World Chess Championship.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fischer

  Chess became very popular in the US pulling in people who never before had an interest, many of them JWs. It became a fad and chess was played among many younger JWs at parties, there were chess parties. The WTS over-reacted. It would have died down eventually. But they had to make it a major sin.

  Pretty soon any brother who wanted privileges or to keep them found that playing chess or talking about it would get him a reprimand.

  *** g73 3/22 p. 14 Chess—What Kind of Game Is It? ***

  Some chess players have recognized the harm that can result from playing the game. According to The Encyclopædia Britannica, the religious reformer "John Huss, . . . when in prison, deplored his having played at chess, whereby he had lost time and run the risk of being subject to violent passions."

  The extreme fascination of chess can result in its consuming large amounts of one’s time and attention to the exclusion of more important matters, apparently a reason Huss regretted having played the game. Also, in playing it there is the danger of "stirring up competition with one another," even developing hostility toward another, something the Bible warns Christians to avoid doing.

  Then, too, grown-ups may not consider it proper for children to play with war toys, or at games of a military nature. Is it consistent, then, that they play a game noted to be, in the opinion of some, an "intellectualized equivalent of the maneuvers enacted by little boys with toy soldiers"? What effect does playing chess really have upon one? Is it a wholesome effect?

  By 1996 the Awake had an article where young JWs said what they did for a good time.

  ***

  g96 9/22 p. 22 How Can I Have a Good Time? ***

  What are some things you can do at a gathering—besides simply watching TV, listening to music, or conversing? "We usually plan the evening in advance," says Sanchia. "We’ve played games or had someone play the piano, so we could sing songs together." An African youth named Masene says: "We sometimes play cards, draughts [checkers], and chess."

  So JWs from the 1970's may cling still to the chess demonization and newer JWs may never have heard of it.
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  mrsjones5

  I remember that since I grew up in the madness...it's true
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  Earnest

  They...say it can make one competitive and aggresive

  The background to this article (in the March 1973 Awake) was that the year before there had been a World Chess Championship in Iceland between America's Bobby Fischer and Russia's Boris Spassky. The cold war was still quite frosty and the Russians had dominated chess for thirty years or more. It caught the public imagination and suddenly everyone was playing chess.

  I would certainly agree that at world championship level the game is both competitive and aggresive, and that even at club level you are more likely to "crush" your opponent than simply win a game. Bobby Fischer came out with some outrageous statements (and still does) but a lot of it was showmanship...he was the Cassius Clay of chess. But the article was widely ignored and a couple of years later there was an article on recreation which restored chess to "respectability".

  Earnest
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  clear2c

  Almost atheist lol "I Was a Hungry, Hungry Hippos Champion, Then I Found a Better 'Hunger'!" HAHAHAHHAHA :)thats funny!
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  RunningMan

  This was one of those goofball ideas that they came up with when extrapolating their doctrines into real life. They forgot that you need to filter the silliness before applying it to reality - like the end is coming any day now, but you still need to buy pension funds, because we all know that the end isn't actually coming any day now.
  
  Yes, it is old light, because it is old. But, it has never been recanted. It's one of those articles that they just don't want people to remember, like the one about mother's day = Satanic plot.
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  blondie

  By 1996 the Awake had an article where young JWs said what they did for a good time.

  ***

  g96 9/22 p. 22 How Can I Have a Good Time? ***

  What are some things you can do at a gathering—besides simply watching TV, listening to music, or conversing? "We usually plan the evening in advance," says Sanchia. "We’ve played games or had someone play the piano, so we could sing songs together." An African youth named Masene says: "We sometimes play cards, draughts [checkers], and chess."

  The WTS always tries to back door these things.

  Blondie