I'm wondering how it's become such a mainstream religion rather than labelled a 'cult'.
Time, Rebekah. Time. If a cult gets through it's initial growing pains, we get used to them. The JW's have been around for about 150 years.
Does anyone know why you can't play chess???? ; I won't even start questioning the rest of the list!!
This is variously enforced by the JW's. I heard it was a big deal back in the seventies when Bobby Fisher is in the news. In a nutshell, if it's fun, the JW's will have a rule about it. Except for drinking. Drinking is OK. How did they justify abstaining from chess? Pagan origin. JW's blame a lot on pagan origins.