Carl Sagan was very interesting as long as he stuck to pure science. I'm a lifelong student of history. Sagan angered me to no end once he started in on philosophy. And that was all it was, his philosophy, his opinions concerning history and sociology in particular, it was neither testable nor cosmological science. I've always detested all religious zealotry (including secular zealot religiosity) . . . excepting my own zealotry for my own independent philosophical and sociological beliefs of course.
So I've a very strong belief that rule that doesn't include some imagined, some realized, being outside one's own self and one's secular group state, is no rule at all. As the man once said long, long ago, "When a man is freed from the bonds of dogma and custom, where will he run? He has gotten loose of the soul, if you like the word, or from whatever keeps a man on two feet instead of four. And now Kritias too is running on the mountains, with no more between him and his will than a wolf has."