I don't think you've read my post carefully enough.
If I were to, God forbid, return to the fold, I would have to divest myself of all pagan accoutrements, knowing how what they symbolise work on our psyches from our collective unconscious regardless as to whether or not we consciously are aware of them or what they symbolise.
I don't agree with them. I don't really see where you picked that up. I'm saying that if I were to commit to that religion, I would have to divest myself of the outward symbols. But I think that is crazy since one is basically working counter to ones' natural unconscious forces.
It is widely accepted that crosses, swastikas, Egyptian ankh's etc belong to antiquity and therefore may be called "Pagan".
My beef with the Watctower society is not their rejection of the symbol, but rather their attempt to change the history of what happened at Calvary . Of course we cannot be dogmatic, but everything we read leans toward there being a crossbeam to the "torture stake".
Why not reject the use of the icon, but still accept that most likely Christ died on a cross?
I love the pentagram, because it has such deep religious meaning for me. Once I left the JWs I started to wonder "so what is ACTUALLY wrong with pagan things anyway?"
That opened things up for me so well, and I think that JWs never ask that question.
No, no, no... I'm not saying that at all. My choice of words may not have been the best there, but it was an attempt at remaining neutral on that controversy. The point is that the idea that Christ died on the cross changed the symbolism for the cross to include that. Prior to that, the cross was more directly a solar symbol.
Don't start confronting me on a tangental topic.
Daystar, it was a joke from Family Guy adapted to the situation (the Vietnam part was on the show, though).