Does it have to provide a "positive" alternative? Is NOT collecting stamps a "positive alternative" to collecting stamps?
I believe I can agree with that. So long as no pejorative intent is included in the "reject religion" category. As we all know it is QUITE common in the religious circles to suggest that atheist are just "mad at God". I once heard someone who really hates atheism characterize it as people who didn't get a bike as a child for CHristmas and got mad at God. That was offensive in the extreme given that many of us have arrived at the atheist position from one of having reviewed our own faith and our own conceptions of what nature requires to explain it.
I doubt very highly that the "Golden Rule" was radical at any time really. I believe you and I both agreed that many of the moral actions are instinctual in may animals. But humans are simply more capable of examining alternatives and need to universalize the moral edicts we are probably born with in no small way.
I think what might be radical is the step we as humans add onto it: framing the inherent moral instincts in more universal terms and provide a way to require people to go with the moral instincts as opposed to the alternatives which we are (uniquely?) capable of generating in our large brains.
The radical bit is to say it out loud. Or to frame it in a way to is more expansive than just the moral instinct to help others of our kind.
