Here is an amusing question. I’m not trying to get anyone’s dander up. 
What saves more people: Chess or Religion?
hee hee! 
Just wondering what you think.
Chess puts people in a situation where they need to be saved. Unfortunately, religion does not save them.
Bill Smythe
Hilarious!
Religion can help people to be better people, although it can help them to become worse as well. Chess, too, can be described in that way.
I was put in mind of the question when I read in Dan Heisman’s book, “Everybody’s Second Chess Book”, that between 1990 and 1998, junior memberships in the USCF went from 5,000 to over 40,000. I was thinking that all those young people would be gaining a chance to concentrate on something, to appreciate objectivity in action, to do something mental, and that this would surely ‘save’ some of them. One hopes!
The question is, were there more young players in 1998 than in 1990, or just more of them who were USCF members?
Jolly good question. I don’t know. I suspect there were more players, because with the organizational push that must accompany the boost in membership, it seems likely that new players joined the fray. But, the evidence is incomplete.
Chess has absolutely no redeemable qualities, which makes it relaxing. Religion, is sending more people to “Hell” than any other sin I know. Only God Saves. That is not, just my take on it.
Here’s a related question: Which do you think has led more people to prayer? When the time is running low and your opponent’s hand is reaching toward his queen and any move made by the queen will lose the game immediately for him?
“Oh please, oh please, oh please let it be so!!”