The International Committee of the Red Cross is Occult and Esoteric

To begin my response to round 2, I wish to make a few points clear... Firstly, that I am new to the debating scene, and as such was not familiar with the idea of quoting sources, organising points, etc., and thank Rakovsky for his advice on this matter. I shall, however, not be using any of the links he provided in his email to me on this subject, as I suspect he may be trying to lead me down the argument he has prepared in advance! Secondly... despite stating that he does not expect me to defend someone else's website - I find the introduction of someone else's work quite distracting from the nature of a debate, and feel I should state that the internet is replete with views, opinions, facts and ideas from every quarter possible. To quote from someone else to try to put me in my place seems a bit like a presidential debate beginning with "Hitler said x, and he was a politician, therefore the presidential candidate is Hitler"! I will, therefore, not be introducing Reptilians or David Icke, as he tried to suggest I do, as I am not, and never have been, a believer in the more alien-centric aspects of conspiracy theories. What I will point out is that he supported my argument when he said the Muslims view the Red Cross as a Christian symbol, and that it has something to do with the crusades... Wikipedia states that.. "Crusade" is a modern term, from the French croisade and Spanish cruzada, that was applied to the medieval military expeditions only in retrospect. - http://en.wikipedia.org... The etymology of the word Crusade therefore contains the word Cross in both French and Spanish (crois, and cruz respectively). It could be argued that this name comes from the use of the cross as a Christian symbol, or that it comes from crossing the Mediterranean. But most crusaders travelled across land, and only the Templar ships regularly travelled to and from the Holy land to transport pilgrims. The cross itself may be a Christian symbol, but so too was Icthus the fish. The cross predates Christianity by many centuries: The cross-shaped sign, represented in its simplest form by a crossing of two lines at right angles, greatly predates, in both East and West, the introduction of Christianity. It goes back to a very remote period of human civilization. It is supposed to have been used not just for its ornamental value, but also with religious significance.[2] - http://en.wikipedia.org... The ICRC and Rakovsky's "Serious Doubts" In much the same way as some Buddhists are keen to point out that the swastika existed long before Hitler adopted it as the symbol of Nazism, some feel uncomfortable using it today because of the negative associations it now has. But does that now make it a Nazi symbol instead? Could it be possible that an organisation as vast as the ICRC might have a vested interest in downplaying any occult connection to its symbol? The continuation of an organisation beyond the death of its founding members is always going to take it in new directions, and maybe there are people high up in the organisation that don't even know that the cross has any symbolic meaning beyond its similarity to the Swiss flag. BUT THIS DOESN'T MEAN IT WASN'T INTENDED TO HAVE ONE! Imagine the Church of Satan decides in the future, after the death of its leader, that they want a new direction for the group and start doing humanitarian work. What would their new leader say when asked "But your inverted cross represents evil, doesn't it?" As with hieroglyphics, symbols have associated meanings that are culturally understood even without words to explain them. Corporations spend millions on rebranding to try to make their logos as rich with meaning as possible. On Rosicrucians I mentioned Rosicrucians for the same reason as the Templars and the Masons - all esoteric groups claim some connection between each other. If The Red Cross is one such group, then there IS a connection, no matter how tenuous. The fact that its modern corporation-style organisation is reluctant to admit such a link is the same as the fact that the White House doesn't go round shouting from the rooftops that many of the founding fathers (including George Washington) openly admitted membership to Masonic fraternities. Benjamin Franklin, while in London, was a regular visitor to the infamous (although I suspect largely just for kicks) Naughty Hellfire Club - http://en.wikipedia.org... . Swiss Flag Many of the flags that we know nowadays have their origins in Heraldry, and the coats of arms of Kings and Queens. Only a brief glance at the symbolism of heraldry will show that EVERY ASPECT OF A FLAG HAS OCCULT SIGNIFICANCE. Even the shade of red is important. People don't just say, "Hey, we're a country now - why don't we throw some shapes out and see which one looks best on our headed notepaper?" Use of a white cross as a mark of identification of the combined troops of the Old Swiss Confederacy is first attested in the Battle of Laupen (1339), where it was sewn on combatants' clothing as two stripes of textile, contrasting with the red St. George's cross of Habsburg Austria, and with the St. Andrew's cross used by Burgundy and Maximilian I. - http://en.wikipedia.org... . Back to the 'serious doubts' point for a moment - I find the argument extremely weak to say that someone saying they are not occult is proof they aren't! That's like if a gangster went to court, and the judge said "Are you, sir, or have you ever been, a gangster?" - and the gangster said "No, sir. Never sir. I love my grandmother and give flowers to children and all that," and the judge says "RELEASE THE PRISONER!" The problem that my newfound friend Rakovsky seems to have is that he has set himself an impossible task. To prove that something has no hidden meaning or secret plan is, and always has been as impossible as it is to prove that an openly secret society doesn't have an evil agenda. When General Franco had the Spanish Masonic Lodges closed, accusing them of plotting against the Spanish state, they could not prove they hadn't any more than he could prove they had. But he had the soldiers, the guns and the wall ready to line them up against if they didn't go home quietly. So, in summary, and in preparation for round three - if a third round is needed, I believe that it is clearly demonstrable that 1 - The Red Cross as a symbol is chock-full of esoteric, occult, spiritual and religious imagery, and its choice of colour is as important as the fact that its four points are equal lengths (unlike the official symbol of Christianity) 2 - An organisation that names itself after its symbol is not going to just switch to something else for kicks. I remember when the BBC decided to simply change the colours on its logo there was a public outcry at the millions it cost to do so. Imagine if they then said "some people might find the letters BBC offensive, so we're going to call ourselves WWF from now on"! 3 - The whole point of esoteric knowledge is that it is hidden from the general population. Just because we know that organisations like the Freemasons exist, and can even find out by law (in the UK at least) who is a member, we don't know exactly when it began, or what its founding members had planned for it at the time - and certainly not whether they intended it to last hundreds of years.