Express your religion in terms of chess pieces? (Is Buddhism a real religion?)

I met someone who, when I mentioned my father is Buddhist, expressed some doubt that Buddhism is a religion.

It would have been smarter to doubt whether my father is a real Buddhist.  He's invented his own kind of Buddhism somehow.

Religion is literally relevant to chess incidentally since some people play chess on Sundays and some people may also have a worship service to attend on Sundays.  In that way, religion is relevant to chess for people who play chess, who also worship on Sundays.  They just interfere with each other.  But a more deep connection may be seen by some.

How do Buddhism or other religions apply to chess?

If I read the New English Bible and think about chess the whole time I am reading it, will I start to think of the characters as chess pieces?

Is the religious figure of Christ the King related to the King in chess? 

Is human player like God to the chess pieces? 

In Zen Buddhism, what miracles might I achieve if I meditate deeply on chess?

I also wondered the religious significance of promoting a pawn to another piece.

Maybe what I am working towards really is a chess-based religion, but I can't quite see it yet.   Maybe Caissa will communicate with me directly so that I can become a new world prophet!  What about you?!

Assuming a philosophical discussion of religion is OK in an intellectual group. What is Religion.

My definition.

A belief in an after life and the guide lines/ rules to arrive there under the best circumstances.

Hi Cavatine! How wonderfull to hear from you. And what an interesting point you're making. I have a master degree in comparative religion. And the discussion about Buddhism being either a religion or a world view is rather familiar and remains unresolved. Today I was a minister in church and we read how Christ fed 5000 people with 5 loafs of bread and 2 fishes. !2 baskets of bread remained after everybody was done. That's the metaphor for your pawn-promotion: something small becomes something strong and abundant.

In his book The Promise of Salvation Martin Riesebrodt defines religion as such: 

Religion is (by definition) "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods." Buddhism doesn't involve the latter, but a lot of Buddhists believe in supernatural/superhuman phenomena, so I guess it depends on the Buddhist. Religion is also defined as "a particular system of faith and worship", which again, probably depends on the Buddhist. There is the following of the Buddha's teachings and aspiring to become like the Buddha, which is similar to many religions with a leading figure and could be interpreted as a form of worship.

I am full of ignorance and opinions when it comes to religion.

I think religion is too big a topic to discuss in reality.  In reality, religion is a bigger topic than any book or library or discussion could hope to cover in its full detail.  I see it as inseparable from the complexity of life.

Intellectually we can attempt to conceptually separate and tease apart the different aspects of religion.  Is there any hope to get a firm mental grasp of it without oversimplifying too much?

It seems impossible to analyze it fully unless I start with a particular aim of what I want to accomplish from the analysis.  I have not gotten to step 2, after the initial motivations for religion

The initial motivations are

 1) A person or animal has died and the transformation is incomprehensible

 2) Looking up at the stars and there are so many stars

 3) A powerful charismatic leader, whose personality is incomprehensible, who gets followers, who starts a movement

Anyway, starting from the last idea, the new religion should be Deep Green Resistance.  There is a book by that title with three authors listed.  That is an idea that I keep coming back to recently - that and a book called Awake by the Bedside that my brother sent me recently.

Given those three properties, here is why chess could be a religion

1) it is not clear what creature's death would have required chess as a solution.  It is hard to think of someone's afterlife (or near-death or pre-death experience) could involve some kind of Chess Heaven or some kind of pure chess reconnection, such as happens in stories of near-death experience where most people seem to envision reuniting with their most loved connections who have passed on. 

The only possibility might be someone sort of like this - maybe on the autistic spectrum, who once made a very fantastic Octopus Knight, and then the school cafeteria supervisor forced the game to end.  But before it ended the kid was purely in love with that chess piece

2) Chess positions are more numerous than stars or even particles in the observable universe, so this is clear!  However, they are less meaningful to humans, so it is also really dubious.

3) For example Bobby Fischer or Kasparov or Alekhine or JustADude!

Note: Other parts of life also involve religion

4) Religions usually (always?) involve a community of people (or intelligent beings such as dolphins or AIs may also be involved, maybe?). 

Obviously there is some kind of chess community; however, entire families of people who are all involved in chess seriously is a rare thing.  Chess does not result in many marriages, so this aspect of a religion applies to chess only slightly.

5) A system of morals.

Chess can be seen to follow the virtues of fairness and justice, but only in a very limited sense, as a model. Most disputes that arise in life can not be settled by chess in any literal, relevant way.

In summary, I have been comparing and contrasting Chess with Religion somehow.

It is said that “every Lama are there own sect” so your father inventing his own Buddhism makes sense in this regard. 

Buddhism is simply behaving with compassion, love and kindness on our hearts, which is in line with Christ’s teachings; and I am not the first to infer Christ practices Buddhism. 

There is a distinct line between religion (group) and spirituality (individual). Either can be practiced in a group or as an individual, and the line is the same. Religion has a good place with the individual but when practiced as a group the individual may lose some benefit and behave out of will and group/sheep mentality. Spirituality in a group setting may be tricky but less damaging more beneficial for the individual and certainly the universe. 

“The Father is Buddhist, the son is Christian, the spirit Holy” it is a funny quote. 

On one hand I think a new religion is the last thing this world needs, on the other hand I like where you’re going, or at least where you’re coming from. Good Luck. 

Yesterday I won 7 and lost 0 and took first prize in a tournament of Scrabble, which took place in a church.  It definitely felt like there was divine intervention especially in the last game when I had to play someone with a higher rating who was 6-0.  On one play I had AINRRST and played R(EX) for 10 points and magically drew an O, and played NOTARIS(E) for 60 the next turn. In the endgame I made PO to set up APO and I neglected to think my opponent might have a U for UPO. But by extreme luck, he did not, and then I played six tiles the next turn to spell DENTAL and APO and LIT. That was 29 points but the key was that drawing 6 tiles I received Z?I and I played Z(ER)o for 44 and then he had to put his Q by the triple word score so I got QI for 33 the next turn.  That was basically how I won. He told me I could have ended the game sooner with OCTAN which I didn't know was a word for sure, but by then it didn't matter.

Many other great things happened in the tournament, which took place at Austin Bible Church.  There was a sign up on the wall to say "We walk by faith, not by sight" from Corinthians, which I thought was pretty appropriate.  And there was a framed plaque on the table with something about doing good work.

I tend to think that religion is made-up and when the Pastor says I have to offer my soul to Jesus or else suffer eternal hellfire then I think it is just some kind of sales job.  Chess and Scrabble and Christianity are all made-up entities created by humans.  That does not mean I should not do it, since I realize I am a fairly typical monkey-human-person-creature in the world. Christianity has a somewhat greater background than chess and scrabble do. I dislike a lot of the religion-based politics that have been going around though!

In one of the other games I played, I tried MANITO[L] with a blank and my opponent smartly challenged it, so I got the tiles back.  The next turn I played M(E)TANOI[A], which means 'a religious conversion'. It turned out I should have just played something like MANITOU or MANITOS or TAMPION or MAINTOP with the A above LOW to form ALOW. But I had just studied METANOIA and I didn't see the A hook and she challenged METANOIA so I won a free turn and it was an easy win by about 120.

I do not know what to do about this except maybe I should apply for sainthood.  That would be a good website! People could write in and apply for sainthood!

P.S. I forgot to say when I played NOTARIS(E) I nearly had the opportunity to play another church word, OR(G)ANIST, but my opponent blocked that spot.  My grandma played the organ in her dad's church before.

As an Atheist, I liken religion to humanity to what Dogs and wolves do by their " Howls " !

it is an instinctive search to be part of a bigger reality! yet such search subsides when one's growth in knowledge reduces instinctive behavior.  

Are you saying that YOUR growth in knowledge allows you to state unequivocally that there is no higher being?

Yes.....of course.

And of course you have a scientific method to prove that?

1- The burden of the proof is with the other side..not with me.

2- History, is my scientific proof. ( just to be polite to your question ).

3- please read my original statement...of course, knowledge overpowers instinct ...do you really need proof for that ?..have you not noticed that in your own life.

1. The burden of proof is with one that makes a statement and says it is fact.

2. History. Please site instances in history that affirm your statement.

3. To say unequivocally that there is a higher being is no more irrational (Instinctive) then to say unequivocally that there is not.

Both statements are irrational (Instinctive).

I believe it is likely and am hopeful that there is a higher being and life after death. It is definitely an easier way to live and give than to believe that is all for nought and why go on.

That may be an instinctive statement but since neither you or I have scientific proof, it is the more logical statement.

Any behavior is instinctive if it is performed without being based upon prior experience (that is, in the absence of learning),

The bottom line.

Neither of us have proof.

I acknowledge that. You don't, or are unable to cite proof. Simply saying you don't need proof is an evasion, a cop out.

I choose to live with what's comfortable for me. Perhaps you do too? If that is what makes you happy that's great for you.

Here's an analogous question.

Do aliens exist. I expect you would say no based on your previous arguments. However it would be hard to argue that in this near infinite universe we are the only life forms.

Just because history doesn't substantiate their existence doesn't mean they are not out there.

Another thought. At what point would an alien who evolved billions of years before we did become a higher being?

I provided collective historical human knowldge..

Which what google is...

What was it you provided ??

You provided a definition of instinct. Nothing more. You also implied that it was bad.

Most animals including humans have instincts and survive because of them.