Violence in Chess

There are religious groups which forbid members to play chess.  They reason that chess promotes violence since its objective is to kill the opponent king and as many opponents as necessary even at the expense of the lives of many friendly soldiers.  What do you think?

What groups? I have heard of no such thing until now.

Ridiculous!!  But I guess it's no sillier than the one that forbids eating potatoes. Chess is by no means the only game that symbolizes killing the opponent.

Didn't the religious group that Fischer belonged to (at the time of his World Championship match against Spassky) forbid its members to play chess and other such "frivolous" games?

Its no sillier than the religious groups that forbid dancing or music. I don't know why people listen to that garbage in this day and age. It was one thing 1,000 years ago when everyone was illiterate and thought the Earth was flat and all, but geez.

I don't know, but that's the same church that now bans the eating of potatoes! 

We need to rein in this discussion, lest we inadvertently start disparaging this religion, which I'm sure the admins (and the members of that religious group, whichever it is) won't appreciate. Accordingly, its members probably don't even visit this site, thus they would be unable to defend themselves.

But chess in fact does not imply killing of the King or any enemy or ally pieces. They are "captured," not "killed," and we have no real reason to presume that they are killed. (We can speculate, till the cows come home, what happens to those personified pieces after the game, but that's irrelevant to chess, because the game is over by then... so, oh well.) Yes, in war, death is the foremost fate of soldiers taken out of action by the enemy... in real life. But chess being a game, there's nothing that says the pieces are ever "killed."

How silly. It's not a violent game, in fact, it's very passive. I know of many churches that host chess tournaments for outreach programs.

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

You mean potatoes... see above

Yes. Without even having to look it up, a religion that claims anything absurd is typical.

I think that is silly. :-)

I recommend reading the book "The Immortal Game" by David Shenk.  He points out how at various times in history, chess has been denounced and forbidden by popes, imams, and rabbis.  At various other times in history, chess has been played and praised by other popes, imams, and rabbis.

Not enough violence in chess for my tastes, maybe Penalty Chess is the way forward:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqUzJq8rNMk

I prefers to watch mud-wrestlin' - had an ex gf went into that in Australia - best paid job she ever got hold of

So... exactly which religion is being accused of this silliness? Or is the original poster just trolling?

Although, there is http://elephanticity.250x.com/xianches.html which is a site explaining why Christians shouldn't play chess. Be sure to read all the way to the end. Very funny stuff. I never knew that tipping the king to resign was a symbolic representation of a ritual human sacrifice until I read that site.

--Fromper