Atheism

The movie I was talking is titled "The Ledge"
is anyone familiar with the movie?

The claim that the United States was founded as a Christian nation is historically inaccurate, but it’s a dangerous myth that seems to be spreading. Where did it and trappings -- like the motto “In God We Trust -- come from?
Read a New York Times piece by a Princeton professor that explains how business leaders, under attack during the Great Depression, helped create that skewed version of America’s history. They worked with religious leaders to marry capitalism and Christianity as the very definition of American character and freedom and portray both as being undermined by a growing federal government.

Haven't seen it. Regardless of the theme, reading about it, it's not the genre of movie I would generally seek out. I'm more likely to go for fast paced escapism. Looking forward to the new Avengers movie. No message. Just fantastic bullshit.

The claim that the United States was founded as a Christian nation is historically inaccurate, but it’s a dangerous myth that seems to be spreading. Where did it and trappings -- like the motto “In God We Trust -- come from?
Read a New York Times piece by a Princeton professor that explains how business leaders, under attack during the Great Depression, helped create that skewed version of America’s history. They worked with religious leaders to marry capitalism and Christianity as the very definition of American character and freedom and portray both as being undermined by a growing federal government.

.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_God_we_trust
"In God we trust" first appeared on U.S. coins in 1864 and has appeared on paper currency since 1957. A law passed by the 84th Congress (P.L. 84-140) and approved by the President Eisenhower on July 30, 1956, the President approved a Joint Resolution of the 84th Congress, declaring IN GOD WE TRUST the national motto of the United States. IN GOD WE TRUST was first used on paper money in 1957, when it appeared on the one-dollar silver certificate. The first paper currency bearing the motto entered circulation on October 1, 1957. "

The claim that the United States was founded as a Christian nation is historically inaccurate

Note we cross-posted. I added the bottom link after you posted.

Dawkins has said that on a scale from zero to seven, from belief to non-belief, he scores about 6.9. I am even a tad higher than that. I am a true non-believer. I am also a fanatical Darwinian – more so even than Dawkins, because I think that when it comes to culture, genes do much that he hands over to his own special cultural notion of "memes". I have written many books about the implications of Darwinian thinking for epistemology and ethics.

What's more, I think that religion has done and continues to do much harm to society. In the blog I write for the Chronicle of Higher Education I have taken on the Catholics, the Calvinists, the Mormons (that got me into hot water), and even the dear old Quakers... was the expert witness in philosophy in Arkansas when the American Civil Liberties Union successfully fought against a law requiring the teaching of so-called "creation science" (aka biblical literalism) in the publicly supported schools of that state. I have been a vocal opponent of creationism for many years.

What I am concerned with here is the self-proclaimed world-view of Humanism (which I capitalise to make this distinction). This is the movement that makes claims about science — and evolution in particular — that interest me. And it is this kind of Humanism that makes me uneasy. It doesn’t just define itself against religion; in some respects, it has taken on aspects of religion. Perhaps it is a kind of religion....

Why do I get upset by this? Firstly, because I didn’t give up one faith to take up another...
Secondly, I am uneasy that Humanism puts human beings at the centre of things in a way that is reminiscent of religion, especially monotheistic traditions...
Thirdly, although science and religion can clash (you can’t believe in modern paleoanthropology and a literal Adam and Eve), I don’t think they are always in opposition....
Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly, rival religions tend to say awful things about each other, putting down the doctrines and the practitioners...

The Humanism I have been discussing in this piece does bear strong similarities to conventional religion. One finds the enthusiasm of the true believer, and this encourages a set of unnerving attributes: intolerance, hero-worship, moral certainty and the self-righteous condemnation of unbelievers.

But I suspect Michael Ruse is more of a "believer" than a "non-believer"...

The Humanism I have been discussing in this piece does bear strong similarities to conventional religion. One finds the enthusiasm of the true believer, and this encourages a set of unnerving attributes: intolerance, hero-worship, moral certainty and the self-righteous condemnation of unbelievers.

Michael Ruse is an atheistic philosopher who has little regard for the atheism of types like Richard Dawkins, calling it unsophisticated, lacking in both subtlety and understanding.