Christians, don't you think Jesus would be upset that your symbol is the device used to kill him?

I don't think jesus would see it that way....Jesus knows he died on the cross..most likly he would know thats its a reminder to the people....how he died..

Jesus said (Luke 9:23 to be my Disciple you must pick up your cross daily and follow me.. So if we picked up our cross daily it would be our reminder to let the sinful thoughts and old person in us die and to live for CHRIST... You have to go back to roman times and see what the cross meant... It was disgraceful dishonoring and deplorable. If you really carried a cross it would be humbling. So we should humble ourselves and give God the glory and praise for allowing His Son to die on the Cross for all sins, past present and future. They put Jesus IN A GRAVE AND THREE DAYS LATER HE CONQUERED the grave. Now the tomb stands empty because Jesus occupies his throne in heaven seated on the right hand of the Father God!!!.

Jesus is fully aware of what people are doing with the cross.

He is also fully aware that he did *not* die on such an instrument.

He was put to death upon an upright stake (stauros'), with his hands above his head.

Likely only two nails were used to impale him, one for the hands; one for the feet.

Stau·ros′ in both the classical Greek and Koine carries no thought of a “cross” made of two timbers. It means only an upright stake, pale, pile, or pole, as might be used for a fence, stockade, or palisade.

Says Douglas’ New Bible Dictionary of 1985 under “Cross,”( pg 253):

- “The Gk. word for ‘cross’ (stauros; verb stauroo . . . ) means primarily an upright stake or beam,

and secondarily a stake used as an instrument for punishment and execution.”

The fact that Luke, Peter, and Paul also used xy′lon as a synonym for stau·ros′ gives added evidence that Jesus was impaled on an upright stake without a crossbeam, for that is what xy′lon in this special sense means. (Ac 5:30; 10:39; 13:29; Ga 3:13; 1Pe 2:24)

Note what W. E. Vine says on this subject:

“STAUROS (σταυρός) denotes, primarily, an upright pale or stake. On such malefactors were nailed for execution. Both the noun and the verb stauroo, to fasten to a stake or pale, are originally to be distinguished from the ecclesiastical form of a two beamed cross.”

Greek scholar Vine mentions the Chaldean origin of the two-piece cross and how it was adopted from the pagans by Christendom in the third century C.E. as a symbol of Christ’s impalement.—Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, 1981, (Vol. 1, p. 256).

Significant is this comment in the book The Cross in Ritual, Architecture, and Art:

“It is . . . unquestionably a fact, that in ages long before the birth of Christ, and since then in lands untouched by the teaching of the Church, the Cross has been used as a sacred symbol. . . . The Greek Bacchus, the Tyrian Tammuz, the Chaldean Bel, and the Norse Odin, were all symbolised to their votaries by a cruciform device.”—By G. S. Tyack, London, 1900.

The book The Non-Christian Cross, by J. D. Parsons (London, 1896), adds:

“There is not a single sentence in any of the numerous writings forming the New Testament, which, in the original Greek, bears even indirect evidence to the effect that the stauros used in the case of Jesus was other than an ordinary stauros; much less to the effect that it consisted, not of one piece of timber, but of two pieces nailed together in the form of a cross. . . . It is not a little misleading upon the part of our teachers to translate the word stauros as ‘cross’ when rendering the Greek documents of the Church into our native tongue, and to support that action by putting ‘cross’ in our lexicons as the meaning of stauros without carefully explaining that that was at any rate not the primary meaning of the word in the days of the Apostles, did not become its primary signification till long afterwards, and became so then, if at all, only because, despite the absence of corroborative evidence, it was for some reason or other assumed that the particular stauros upon which Jesus was executed had that particular shape.”—Pp. 23, 24; see also The Companion Bible, 1974, Appendix No. 162.

The cross is a symbol of *pagan* religion, and not something that God would ever allow his son to be killed upon:

“The shape of the [two-beamed cross] had its origin in *ancient Chaldea,* and was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name) in that country and in adjacent lands, including Egypt. By the middle of the 3rd cent. A.D. the churches had either departed from, or had travestied, certain doctrines of the Christian faith. In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross-piece lowered, was *adopted* to stand for the cross of Christ.”—An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words (London, 1962), W. E. Vine, p. 256.

“It is strange, yet unquestionably a fact, that in ages long before the birth of Christ, and since then in lands untouched by the teaching of the Church, *the Cross has been used as a sacred symbol.* . . . The Greek Bacchus, the Tyrian Tammuz, the Chaldean Bel, and the Norse Odin, were all symbolised to their votaries by a cruciform device.”—The Cross in Ritual, Architecture, and Art (London, 1900), G. S. Tyack, p. 1.

“Various figures of crosses are found everywhere on Egyptian monuments and tombs, and are considered by many authorities as *symbolical either of the phallus [a representation of the male sex organ] or of coition.* . . . In Egyptian tombs the crux ansata [cross with a circle or handle on top] is found side by side with the phallus.”—A Short History of Sex-Worship (London, 1940), H. Cutner, pp. 16, 17; see also The Non-Christian Cross, p. 183.

“These crosses were used as symbols of the Babylonian sun-god . . . and are first seen on a coin of Julius Cæsar, 100-44 B.C., and then on a coin struck by Cæsar’s heir (Augustus), 20 B.C. . . . Constantine was a sun-god worshipper. . . .”—The Companion Bible, Appendix No. 162; see also The Non-Christian Cross, pp. 133-141.

“The cross in the form of the ‘Crux Ansata’ . . . was carried in the hands of the Egyptian priests and Pontiff kings as the symbol of their authority as *priests of the Sun god* and was called ‘the Sign of Life.’”—The Worship of the Dead (London, 1904), Colonel J. Garnier, p. 226.

Wow, that's an old one. Did you just discover this? You must be quite young. Of course, the obvious difference is that Jesus gave up his own life on the cross. JFK was assassinated. If you can't understand the difference, perhaps a few years of growing up might help you.

The ignorant fail to understand the power of co opting the symbol of oppression.

Example - The impact of the gay community co opting the word "queer".

You really shouldn't talk about things you know nothing about

it is the symbol of my salvation. It is the symbol of Gods love.

odin is fake

lol