Awake 73 3/23 p.12 "The spirit of compatition between players can lead to unpleasant circumstances...in some homes tensions linger longer then checkmate. Chess is a game of war a play substitute for the art of war...danger of stirring up compatiton and hostility to one another something the bible warns Christians to avoid. What effect does playing chess have on you is it wholesome? There are questions to consider..."
Awakes says playing Chess is evil not for Witnesses!
by Witness 007 16 Replies latest watchtower bible
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jhine
You couldn't make this stuff up !
Jan
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BluesBrother
We know they said this in the seventies but it has not been said since ,and they did once refer to chess as a suitable pastime so I guess they have changed their minds.
The seventies saw a lot of things critisized as unchristian, including rock music, opera with mythical storylines, tv soap operas ........Most of which we ignored...
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Witness 007
Nice to get some new viewpoints. We played sink my battleship! Most playstation games have violent themes.
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dropoffyourkeylee
I love chess, which you can see from my avatar. I've played in USCF tournaments and it is great fun. Some of my best friendships have developed over the chessboard.
The '70s WT article was written during the 'Fischer' boom after the '72 Fischer-Spassky match was top news. Lots of people were introduced to chess at that time in the US. There's never been anything like it afterwards. As is usually the case, the WT discourages anything which 1) results in JWs making friends in a non JW context, and 2) takes time and energy away from the WT treadmill activities. Anything which does these two things will bring down the WT ire.
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Diogenesister
DoYKLee The '70s WT article was written during the 'Fischer' boom after the '72 Fischer-Spassky match was top news. Lots of people were introduced to chess at that time in the US.
Ahhh that explains it. People in the rest of the world not familiar with Gary Fischer would be like "where the heck did this come from?"😳. I'm too young to remember but I know he remained very famous even in the uk for years later.
Watchtower is so America-centric (if that's a word?) and of course they'll try to ban anything popular that will distract the sheep.
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Earnest
Bobby Fischer, Boris Spassky, Garry Kasparov ... all world chess champions. Garry Kasparov is of interest in view of recent events in that he eventually quit chess and took up politics in 2005. He left Russia in 2013 and wrote the book Winter is Coming in 2015. Still a master of strategy.
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vienne
I'm not convinced that Watchtower statements from 40 or 50 years in the past are relevant. And it is easy to give them more importance now than they had at the time. And one of the youtube vids that focuses on this stuff occasionally misrepresents what the articles really said.
Isn't current Watchtower practice more to the point?
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carla
My jw quit playing chess with the kids when he joined in the early 90's because it was a 'war game'. The ban on chess still had legs at that time. No one has asked him to play since.