Before I saw the board, but after seeing the label “atheist chess”, I was assuming that there was going to be “no kings”. I guess I forgot that there was a piece called a “bishop” and that bishops are a religious title. Yeah. A rather impressive memory lapse.
Milena
Lol, it took me a moment, but I got it.
Ingersoll’s Revenge
Cute.
I saw the other boards, namely the one that said “REPUBLICAN CHESS,” and that one took me awhile.
“Why would the GOP not like the king or quee…oooh. They mean “republican” with a small “r.” Gotcha.”
Well, you could call it by its Persian name “ifil” .. or the Indian name( I know it is called something, I cannot find it).. and still play a game of heathen atheist chess
Your king is still under the Christian banner. In the end, even the kings must bow.
BZ
It seems both kings are under the Christian banner, but they’re fighting each other. Maybe white doesn’t like black’s interpretation of the scriptures.
Originally the piece represented an elephant.
That was also when the piece that is now the queen was an advisor.
Christophe Thill
Please not that in French, the bishop is called a “fou” : a madman or lunatic, but more accurately, given the “royal court” context, the king’s jester. So no reference to religion here. And that was long before we had separation of Church and State !
I didn’t know about the Swedish or French versions. I did research that piece once and IIRC in the Middle East (where chess began) it’s called “the elephant” and it’s only called the Bishop here because the word for bishop in Latin is a homonym for the word for elephant. (though I could be remembering wrong)
Ulrich
re Per: In German, it is called “Läufer”, which also means “runner”.
And I can confirm Spork’s report about the RSS feed no longer working in Firefox. Incidentally, the last post showing up in my dynamic bookmark is “Website Help”. Maybe the feed was broken in the process of improving the site?
RobL
The bishops are really quite usefull. Can we just change their name to “Pirates”?
SarahH
I like RobL’s idea – we atheists don’t just think in straight lines! (Or L-shapes… or well, I guess Queens can move diagonally as well, so I kind of lost my point there).
Your king is still under the Christian banner. In the end, even the kings must bow.
Right. Well, between this, the cross-shaped protein in our blood and the cross-shaped nebula in a galaxy far, far away – I’m convinced. How could I not have seen it before?
Jeff
On the other hand, there is Wizard’s Chess. Perhaps I should be worshiping Harry Potter.
Daggerstab
Add Bulgarian to the collection of languages in which that piece is not called a “bishop”. It’s an “officer” here. “Mutineers’ chess”? 🙂
