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So when does their 'right to free speech' end and my right to be left alone on my personal computer, in my private residence, begin?

Obviously since they are a Corporation and you are *only* an individual, their rights trump yours any day now that it's the 21st century. You must not have read the Constitution recently... since it now reads: We the Corporations of the United States, in order to form a more profitable union...

How should I know which books are appropriate for my kids?

Take the bible for instance. Is this really appropriate for under-18s?

Are we going to see this every time a new artistic medium is created?

I keep forgetting that /. is patrolled by the nitpicking police ;-).

Refrain from using forms of the verb "to be" in your comments, and Slashdot nitpickers will have less to work with. Instead of saying something to the effect: "Wavelet and DCT are about the same thing," say "Wavelet and DCT share key aspects." Metaphors using "is" tend to have exceptions that karma-whoring nitpickers like to exploit.

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)

National Socialism has always affirmed that it is determined to take the Christian Churches under the protection of the State.... The decisive factor which can justify the existence alike of Church and State is the maintenance of men's spiritual and bodily health, for it that health were destroyed it would mean the end of the State and also the end of the Church.... It is my sincere hope that thereby for Germany, too, through free agreement there has been produced a final clarification of spheres in the functions of the State and of one Church.
-Adolf Hitler, on a wireless on 22 July, the evening before the Evangelical Church Election

Imbued with the desire to secure for the German people the great religious, moral, and cultural values rooted in the two Christian Confessions, we have abolished the political organizations but strengthened the religious institutions.
-Adolf Hitler, speaking in the Reichstag on 30 Jan. 1934

Found it. The quote is from Helmreich, Ernst Christian "The German Churches Under Hitler," Wayne State University Press, 1979
The entire quote is:

I am absolutely convinced of the great power and the deep significance of the Christian religion, and consequently will not permit any other founders of religion (Religionsstifter). Therefore I have turned against Ludendoriff and separated myself from him; therefore I reject Rosenberg's book. That book is written by a Protestant. It is not a party book. It is not written by him as a member of the party. The Protestants can settle matters with him.
My desire is that no confessional conflict arise. I must act correctly to both confessions. I will not tolerate a Kulturkampf.... I stand by my word. I will protect the rights and freedom of the church and will not permit them to be touched. You need have no apprehensions concerning the freedom of the church.
-Hitler [quoted from Helmreich, p.241]

I don't have a copy to check his source but he is noted author (with many historical books covering other topics) and the book is printed by an actual university press (Wayne State) and is not self published or any crap like that.

From the actual text of Hitler's speeches you can see that the sentiment isn't far from his other comments on Christianity. To contend that Hitler wanted a world free from religion is ridiculous. He saw the Christian church as his source of inspiraton and strength and thought it was important for the nation as well.

=tkk

P.S. If you think quotes lie and would rather have pictures of Hitler greeting cardinals and bishops giving the Nazi salute those are available as well.

Belief in God is just as credible -- not more than, and not less than (and that's the key point) -- as my belief that God does not actually exist, and is in fact a creation of our own minds.

Just because X is possible but unproven is NOT the same as saying it is just as credible as the alternative. It is possible (but unproven) that there is an IPU standing next to you. (An IPU is an Invisible Pink Unicorn, the common currency in these kinds of discussions). However, evidence suggests that there is no such IPU. Neither postulate can be proven without a doubt, and a true scientist would keep their options open about the existence of the IPU. But if a conclusion had to be drawn then most sane people would say that the IPU is not there.

Interestingly, many of these issues are often problems with semantics. Some will say "There is a God", when what they really wanted to say was "Evidence suggests to me that a God exists." The word "is" can be powerfully misused, and there are even those who believe that we should not use the word "is" at all.

Sex, Obscenities, Filth in the Bible

If I want to teach my kids at home, how dare you force me to pay some sort of tax to a school I'm not using.

I certainly agree with this, as well as the idea of non-parents not paying school taxes.

Just because someone wants to run government by principles driven home by religious belief does not make them promoters of theocracy. The belief that we are answerable to something higher than human government is one of the strongest reasons for having a limited government in the first place.

The strongest reason for having a limited government in the first place is that people have a right to do whatever they want as long as they don't harm anyone else. Religion has nothing to do with it.

What check does a non-religious person have from abusing power he is entrusted with?

Well, I'm an atheist and I don't abuse what power I've been entrusted with. You appear to be saying you would if you weren't afraid of hell. I guess that's just a moral difference between us.

The behavior of christian political leaders in the past and present as well as that of televangelists and certain catholic priests conclusively proves that religion is not a protection against abuse of power.

Believe me, atheists are much safer in a nation run by Christians than Christians in a nation run by atheists. Christians have a higher calling to do good by everyone; with an atheist you have no such guarantee.

History disproves this. You won't see atheists launching crusades and burning witches. Even recently you have christian morons like George Bush Sr. saying that atheists "shouldn't be considered citizens". No, christians are no more or less trustworthy than anyone else.

There was a time when Europe was ruled by christianity. We call this period the Dark Ages.

Even though Christians are fallible, I'd rather take my chances with them than the likes of Stalin or Mao.

Christians like Hitler or Torquemada? No thanks. There may be atheists who have committed evil, but none of them committed evil in the name of atheism.

You had a nice point going; not sure why you decided to digress into pointless, erroneous atheism bashing.

You seem to have a stereotypical christian misconception about the source of morality, particularly as it applies to atheists. Here's a link to help you get educated on the subject.

The part of Germany where there are (or have ever been) US Army bases is the western part, formerly known as the Federal Republic of Germany, which has never been Communist -- even in name. So, it must not have been a problem with the political system, but a problem with lagging standards. Until recently, Europeans couldn't bring their mobile phones to the US and expect them to work anywhere. Are the Americans backwards barbarians? Is their capitalist system at fault?

As for the "German telephone system", it had dual-channel 128k ISDN service rolled out widely for more than a decade while we in the US were languishing with 28.8k analog. A joke among telecom people in the US, when asked what ISDN was an acronym for, would reply: "I Still Don't Know."

Finally, Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile service has 9.9 million mobile subscribers in the US. Not too shabby.

I think you may be confusing "regulation" with "communism". Ask anybody in the UK how they feel about their deregulated, market-driven rail system and then talk to some Germans about the Deutsche Bahn. I've spent time on both, and I'm here to tell you that competition does not always lead to better service.

I think it should be clear to anyone who actually considers the reality of the situation that both Communism and Capitalism, as laboratory-sterile concepts, are both doomed to failure. We have seen neither pure communism or pure capitalism in practice. As a previous poster interestingly pointed out, unchecked capitalism might well lead to a situation where a few powerful corporations control every aspect of national life and are indistinguishable from government. In the long run, capitalism and communism may well turn out to be the same thing. There has to be a balance, then, something that is neither of the two.

As for Microsoft's "supposed Monopoly", there are a lot of definitions for monopoly, too. Some of them fit well enough not to merit the "supposed" label, others don't.

Words. Something cannot be something else ("Microsoft is a monopoly"), otherwise they wouldn't be two things. It would be better if we wrote in e-prime.

Not all of them:

This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.
-- John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson.

Also, Jefferson considered Atheism to be a religion. (see here)

Yeah... ;)

But if you feel a bit nihilistic or generally frustrated with the limitations of your language: this would represent the answer.

The Founding Fathers were openly religious. The practice of praying to God, and not just any God, the Christian God embraced by the Christian religions, in government has continued even today

• Thomas Jefferson : Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
• Ben Franklin: "I wish it (Christianity) were more productive of good works ... I mean real good works ... not holy-day keeping, sermon-hearing ... or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments despised by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity."
• Thomas Paine : The fable of Christ and his twelve apostles, which is a parody on the sun and the twelve signs of the zodiac, copied from the ancient religions of the eastern world, is the least hurtful part."
• James Madison: "Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.
• John Adams: As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?

• http://www.ecis.com/~alizard/founding-fathers-xtia nity.html
• http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/extra/foundin g-fathers.html
• http://www.barefootsworld.net/founding.html

As for the cliche about "Christians have shed more blood in God's name than ANY other religeon, ever," I would like to see a number -- especially compared to belief systems like Communism or Naziism.

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited. -Adolf Hitler, in his speech on 12 April 1922

• Crusades - estimated at well over 9 million
• Inquisition - 1 million
• Witch Hunts - 3 million
• Holocaust - 6 million