Jehovah Thinks Chess is of the Debbil

More JW miscellany to amuse yourselves with. Here's a delicious little piece from 1973 that's never been retracted, i.e. it still stands as doctrine:

However, pitting one mind against another, with the element of chance eliminated entirely, tends to stir up a competitive spirit in chess players. In fact, chess is frequently characterized as an 'intellectualized fight.' For example, dethroned world chess champion Boris Spassky noted: "By nature I do not have a combative urge. . . . But in chess you have to be a fighter, and of necessity I became one."

This helps to explain why there are no topflight women chess players-the more than eighty chess grand masters in the world are all men. Actress Sylvia Miles observed regarding this: "To be a professional chess player, you have to be a killer. If the spirit of competition in American women ever does become that strong, then I think we'll get some major female players."

In these two paragraphs, we get to be idiots and misogynists. Wheeee! Although my Navy buddy can vouch for my crappy chess playing, he will also tell you that I have a bizarre style, which I've dubbed "kamikaze." So God forbid, literally, that we put our intellects to the test, eh? Here's some more from that same piece about why chess is so very, very dangerous.

Probably most modern chess players do not think of themselves as maneuvering an army in battle. Yet are not the game's connections with war obvious? The word for pawn is derived from a Medieval Latin word meaning "foot soldier." A knight was a mounted man-at-arms of the European feudal period. Bishops took an active part in supporting their side's military efforts. And rooks, or castles, places of protection, were important in medieval warfare.

Thus Reuben Fine, a chess player of international stature, wrote in his book The Psychology of the Chess Player: "Quite obviously, chess is a play-substitute for the art of war." And Time magazine reported: "Chess originated as a war game. It is an adult, intellectualized equivalent of the maneuvers enacted by little boys with toy soldiers."

Chess leads to war!! And we all know who's behind war: Satan. But wait, we're still not done. We need further evidence that Chess Is Bad. So, let's turn to one of the most reliable sources of evidence:

Some chess players have recognized the harm that can result from playing the game. According to The Encyclopaedia 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."

That's right. Some wild dude from the 1400s gets the last and defining word on the subject.

Considering my love of chess, it's becoming clearer and clearer to me why I was just damn unsuitable material for the JWs. I was born of the debbil's kind!

-- Virgil