Thanks, JH. I agree that we all tend to view these things from our own perspectives. The whole "cross as a symbol" discussion was just something I thought was mildly interesting, and relevant (but not necessarily central) to the discussion that was going on in this thread. I thought it was pretty innocuous.

Whatever our personal beliefs or faith backgrounds, I think we can all agree that people use symbols and language to communicate, and some symbols and language are more effective than others -- particularly when trying to communicate with people from other cultures. That's really all I was getting at, but the discussion probably went on too long, and my point kind of got distorted (ridiculed, in fact) along the way.