I'm sorry, but /. hasn't been a 'technical' crowd for some time now. It's currently a small population of 'technical' people of various fields and a great deal of September That Never Ended wanna-be haxx0rs.

What? That's like saying if I truly didn't believe in Zeus, I wouldn't deny his existence and object to you demolishing my house to build him a temple.

If the people who believed in foolish things would keep their mouths shut and their hands out of public coffers, there'd be no reason for us to deny their silly fairy tales. They could ramble on in solitude like the people who are properly sent to a shrink when they claim to speak to invisible, imaginary beings.

Firstly, I do not see how not objecting to me demolishing your house to build a temple to Zeus follows from your lack of belief in him.

Not every form of religion is like fundamentalist Christianity or Islam. I honestly don't believe the Gods listen to anything I say, mainly because I never talk to them. I try to avoid one-sided conversations. The closest I come to prayer is seeing an Ambulance racing down the side of the road and thinking, "Mercury give you speed," or something else of the sort.

I do not believe that my religion is the only true religion -- such a statement in and of itself, to me, is nonsense. The Western World seems to love the dichotomy -- yes or no, right or wrong, black or white. There are is no black or white, merely some greys that are dingier than others.

I believe in a certain set of morals (which, coincidentally, have nothing to do with my religion, but merely how I would like to be treated by others), and I do not need to force others to act in that fashion. The only time I would ever and do restrain another human being from any chosen course of action is when their actions will form the cause-in-fact of harm to an unwilling third party.

I personally do not care if one wants to drink, smoke, bump-and-grind in a club, or anything else, as long as it does not violate the free will of another person. If your best friend enjoys being beaten bloody in the middle of the street, I shan't stop you from doing so -- unless I think you're about to kill him. I would most likely intervene in that instance.

For this reason, I hold such crimes as murder, rape, and to a lesser degree, certain kinds of theft, to be abhorrent. Not because physical and psychological harm are being done to another, but because they are committed against that person's will. The right to do as you please ends where other people's bodies begin. And the right to dictate other people's behaviors may only be invoked to stop them from violating another's security of their person and possessions.

I have only once in my life had an experience that I would honestly call a theophany, but as I was somewhat in the process of nearly dying from alcohol poisoning at the time, I fully accept that a much more likely explanation is that it was simply a hallucination. Even if it was a hallucination, which it very likely was, that does not lessen, to me, its impact, nor the import and significance of the event.

It is possible for a man to be religious and at the same time believe in minding his own damn business. I will work out my own salvation (or lack thereof, as one's religious leanings may lean) with diligence, and you can do the same. As long as you do not interfere with my freedom to do as I wish as long as I harm no one else, I shall extend to you the same respect and courtesy.

This, of course, extends to the freedom to believe as one wishes. There is only one thing in this world, other than harming one against their will, that I am violently opposed to: Intolerance. I will not tolerate any form of intolerance (and this is the paradox that makes all thing possible.) You are free to believe as you choose. But if your belief demands that I may not believe as I choose, be that based on a religious or areligious belief, then you and I have a problem.

The same freedom that allows you to not believe in any deity is the same freedom that allows anyone else to believe in one, should they so choose. Religion is a tool, and properly wielded, it can do great good. But like any other tool, when wielded by the inept, the selfish, or psychopathic, or the down-right evil, it can cause grievous harm.

Religion should inspire people to 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you' and 'to love your neighbour as you love yourself.' I freely admit my knowledge of many of the world's religions is scant, but at least Buddhism and Christianity and Judaism agree on this. You treat your fellow human beings with respect, with compassion, and with mercy. I am not a sufficiently learned scholar of the Koran to weigh in on what it says on the subject, but I assume the same messages are in there, as well.

Trying to suppress religious belief as 'deviant' or as 'mental illness' is just as grossly inhumane as the suppression that homosexuals received so very recently from the psychiatric community. For good or for ill, one of the fundamentals of human nature is the capacity for belief in the Divine. Such a trait would not exist if it were not a survival mechanism. Indeed, belief in a Higher Power has sustained many individuals through circumstances when all other hopes have failed. For this capacity alone it is worthwhile.

The problem, then is not religion, but men. Evil men, who would subvert others' wills to their own to gain power out of a desire to dictate how others may live. The only remedy to this is freedom, freedom to believe and say and do as you please, so long as you materially harm no one.

I am not a Lawyer, but wouldn't this make those agencies contracted to do this by the Government de facto Agents of the Government, and therefore any materials obtained by them in violation of the 4th Amendment poisoned?

Also, wouldn't a judge have to throw out such evidence as its method of gathering is a clear end-run around the Constitution?

Terry Pratchett. It's from the novel "Feet of Clay."

'No it's not! said Constable Visit. 'Atheism is a denial of a god.'

'Therefore It Is A Religious Position,' said Dorfl. 'Indeed, A True Atheist Thinks Of The Gods Constantly, Albeit In Terms of Denial. Therefore, Atheism Is A Form Of Belief. If The Atheist Truly Did Not Believe, He Or She Would Not Bother To Deny.'

C is a high level language. Anything more complex is balderdash and chicanery.

At this point, I am beginning to lean towards one of two things

• Either he does not exist
• or the government(s) do(es) not actually want him to be found

God forbid we stop prescribing medicines all willy-nilly when they're not necessary just to quite down parents and belly-achers.

I go to the Doctor when it's serious: i.e., it's not getting better, it's getting worse, it's life-threatening or infected. I do not go to the doctor every time my throat hurts. That's just silly.

The grammar and spelling in the article are NOT good. The author, Michael Thompson, -- or "ars technica" -- should get an editor.

I mean, after all, it works so well for /., right?

That's it. I didn't really care about climate change before, and whether or not it was anthropogenic, but THIS MUST END NOW!

WE MUST SAVE THE COFFEE! SAVE THE COFFEE!

I've watched a lot of animals die. A lot. In misery. I've held them in my arms. I've found them half-dead, with their intestines hanging out on the sides of roads. I've seen them left at the front door of a Humane Society in boxes on nights when it gets below freezing. I don't like watching animals suffer.

I hate watching people suffer even more.

The problem with the world is that people seem to care more about cute little animals than they do about living, breathing, thinking human beings.

Animal Cruelty is doing horrible things to animals because you enjoy it or you just don't care. Animal Cruelty is shooting a kitten with a twelve gauge. Animal Cruelty is keeping a dog in your back yard tied up to a tree, rarely feeding it, keeping it on such short line it has to sleep in its own filth. Animal Cruelty is torturing small animals for your own amusement.

Animal Testing is conducting experiments on animals that, while they may, and probably will, kill the animal, will save human lives, in part due to the fact that you don't have to do the same test on a human being.

Please see this.

Then get the fuck off of /. and go to a website where Logic and Reason aren't part of rational debate. Maybe 4chan.

Nice. There's nothing wrong with my argument, so bitch about semantics.

I worked at a Humane Society once. Animal Testing is not Animal Cruelty.

I wish that everyone who thinks we shouldn't do animal testing would volunteer to be have said tests run on themselves. Maybe then they would understand that Human Life is more valuable than Animal Life.

Just as it is better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer, so it is better that ten animals die in the name of science than one human being die because a vaccine was not properly tested, or, worse still, never brought to market because of a lack of testing.

Well, it only works if people don't know about it, right?