Chess and Religion

It's historical, yes, but also rooted in religion, wouldn't you agree? I thought the mere mention of religion on here was against policy. Just sayin'...

Religion has nothing to do with the survival of Chess= every religion inthe world=many=are active plying Chess

This is sort of what I'm wondering about. I'm just not sure how much a role, if any, the Protestant Reformation itself (it's never mentioned) may have played in contrast to the secular  humanism or if they were intrinsically tied together.

This isn't a philosophic discussion, it's purely historic. I'm not in the least interested in what any religion professes or any actions any religions actively followed.  It's not rooted in religion, but it would be hard, actually pointless, to discuss the development of chess from its beginnings to the Age of Enlightenment without mentioning religion.

"If you would like to discuss religion or politics, you may want to join this group"

doesn't say "mention," it says discuss.  By your logic one couldn't "mention" the Soviet Union or Nazism or the fact that Fischer was born Jewish.

Luther made subjective faith the road to grace, rather than objective deed. So it seems as though he was saying the individual's own faith was what mattered, rather than the Church's rules of conduct. Like Descartes, he gave prominence to the individual's solitary mental life over objective appearance. Luther may have been one of the original inspirations of secular humanism? 

So, can we say that the Renaissance by its nature spawned secular humanism -as well as the rise of the middle class -and this idea helped initiate the Reformation movement and all these things diminshed the Roman Catholic influence in Europe which in turn changed the way populations views individuals, recreation and even education? Or is that too much of a stretch?

              I don't think its a stretch, but get a list of all the world chess champions along with what religion they practiced in life, and see if there's a pattern or majority.  

It must be; look how many find the daily puzzle "easy." LOL.

Frankly batgirl yes, I think this is too much of a stretch. Luther did shift the focus from the Church as the judge of dogma and ruler of conduct, to the individual's free will. He did. He advocated it. But that had no incidence at all on the development of access to education. You have to wait until the 18thcentury - the so called Enlightenment- for that to arise, and it did not arise from the religious clash between Romans and Protestants at all. As a matter of fact, the Jesuits (hardcore Catholics) were the ones who developped education by all means, not only in Spain and France, but all over the world. They still do. Protestantism developped a more personal kind of faith, that eventually led to jansenism and quietism. Those beliefs had no incidence on education, almost the contrary. Protestantism , which never believed in proselytism, led to individualism. Chess played by masses arose with the spread of education and culture...and of course leisure, which, as someone pointed out earlier, is not something Protestants encourage. (Catholics not either.)

I would find it very interesting to detrmine some causality between religion and chess, but I see it the other way...chess helping towards spirituality maybe, rather...

Those things had been going on for half a millenium. Something  spurred a change in things - I would say the Bubonic Plague and the introduction of secular humanism. The inception of the Renaissance can't be pinpointed as the Renaissance itself can hardly even be qualified - it was a movement, not an event.  It also wasn't localized in Italy, but what we call the Renaissance developed in different areas of Europe in different times. The start of the Reformation which I would indicate with Luther's 95 Theses and his excommuniction around 1520 coincides with the spread of the Renaissance to Germany.  These things all happened almost in a bundle in the same time-frame, along with the modernization of Chess.  They seem somehow interconnected.

            Coincidence  or  Conspiracy?  

Merci.  That helped. 

David Shenk's Immortal Game put forth that same theory, that chess improved or benefitted every society that embraced it.

Ronald, thanks for the idea but in this thread I'm not interested in players' religions. I'm dealing with a time before anyone had even the concept of a world championship - in fact a time when most peoples' "world" rarely extended beyond their own villages. I'm trying to use a broad brush as far a religion in concerned to try to understand several things about the changes in chess during the 16th century.

           Oh Ok,  I thought you were going for the direction of the world.  I'm on the creshendo end, and your looking for what caused the creshendo. Don't know if I can help you, I'm not a real good historian. But you have a dam interesting thread

I didn't read that.  Given the atrocities committed during the middle ages due to religion such as human sacrifices of "witches" (most of whom "coincidentally" had Jewish names), forced conversion of Jews in Spain, a day to legally throw stuff at Jews (Jews lived in ghettos and were required to wear marks). 

However, Jews have had a unanimous domination over chess: Steinitz, Lasker, Rubinstein, Tarrasch, Tartakower, Botvinnik, Reshevsky, Fischer (even if he wouldn't want to hear so himself :( ), Gelfand, and Kasparov to name a few.

The whole Protestant vs. Catholic argument is moot since (in the Middle Ages at least) both sides were anti-Semitic and both worshipped an incorrect messiah. When did Jesus gather the Jews back to Israel, and why would the Pharisees, men of authority who understood Torah very deeply, not recognize Jesus as the Messiah?  Surely if anyone in the first century could recognize the Messiah it would be them?  Also don't forget that a lot of myth is written into the New Testament as well, so Matthew, Luke, Mark, and John probably made supernatural stuff up interwoven with the historical accounts.  Then again the same I suspect happened with Moses.  He lead the Jews from captivity in Egypt (well documented historical fact) and was inspired by G-d to do so, but the parting of the Red Sea was a romanticization or maybe a literary device not meant to be taken literally. 

@marco

:-) I really see no relationship between destroying the works of the Catholic sponsored artists and not increasing the number of chess players...but I sense what you mean... : how could destruction increase the number of "intelligent" educated people...or did I understand wrong ?

As for the first point, this is wrong. A great number of scientists have had, and still do have, religious beliefs. Science does not preclude faith. But that's a much harder debate, and I won't participate in that one !

G-d spoke to the entire nation of Israel when he handed Moses the 10 Commandments.  If they didn't they would have thought Moses was nuts.  But G-d speaking to Israel is historical fact. 

You also have to remember that the Protestants destroying statues was indeed a logical act (albeit misguided): those statues were considered idols, and G-d hates idolatry.  Of course Protestants themselves have idols (thinking G-d is three instead of one) though most of those statues weren't designed with the intention of worship. 

Interesting discussion here. At least, those replies which have actually addressed the OP. For my money - and bear in mind I'm no historian - the causal arrow here invariably goes in both directions. As some have mentioned, there is of course the general requirement that one have enough time and energy to invest in playing games like chess, which implies a certain level of living condition. Historically, I suspect that virtually nobody who was living day-to-day, merely toiling away to extend their meager existence, would have be willing or able to invest time into a game like chess.

I suspect that education is also an important factor here, as has been mentioned. This link is probably less direct than most have been arguing - it's not that one needs to be educated to play or be interested in chess, but one's exposure to chess is more likely given education, considering one's companions and peers are more likely, themselves, to be involved with the game. Additionally, education would also probably help someone improve their general living conditions, as well, or at least would be highly correlated with it, strengthening the connection mentioned above.

On the flipside, as has also been suggested, games like chess will tend to have an influence on the people who play them, and hence by extension an impact, however minimal, on society at large. Rational thought and logical analysis are indeed beneficial in many respects at virtually all levels of a society - if chess promotes said traits, then perhaps it changes society, though obviously to a very small extent given the number of people who invest time playing it.

So I think the link between chess and religion, historically, would be bidirectional. Of course I've only been talking about "society" and chess, but since everyone was religious back then, the extension is obvious.

So, yes, reformation in religion would affect and be affected by chess, to the extent that religion is related to society and society is related to the individuals who make it up, and those individuals are influenced by the games they play. However, none of these connections, as drawn, would constitute a "direct" relation, which is what you originally asked for.

@ OogieBoogie: Jews have extreme sensitivity and great talent for calculating, that is a historical fact... A perfect combination for the game of chess :-)

as for the rest, all being antisemitic, certainly the Catholics and the Protestant leaders were. But what relation that has to chess I don't quite get.

Boy, did you ever miss the point. Wrong forum, bud, no one gives a crap about that here.