{"id":20491,"date":"2014-01-09T08:22:36","date_gmt":"2014-01-09T13:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=20491"},"modified":"2014-01-09T08:22:36","modified_gmt":"2014-01-09T13:22:36","slug":"advice-for-those-buying-a-used-religion-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/01\/advice-for-those-buying-a-used-religion-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Advice for Those Buying a Used Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2014\/01\/Sagan-Buying-Used-Religion-2.png\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2014\/01\/Sagan-Buying-Used-Religion-2.png\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-20493\" width=\"537\" height=\"302\" alt=\"\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A few years ago, I wrote <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/04\/advice-for-those-buying-a-used-religion.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">a post with the title \u201cAdvice for Those Buying a Used Religion.\u201d<\/a> The title was inspired by an analogy Carl Sagan makes in his book <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1594201072\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1594201072&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=1594201072\" class=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" alt=\"\"><\/em>, which is essentially a transcript of his Gifford Lectures. I thought it was time someone turned his words into one of these internet quote images. And rather than just offer one, I thought I would make two, so that you can choose and share whichever you like most.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2014\/01\/Sagan-Buying-Used-Religion-1.png\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2014\/01\/Sagan-Buying-Used-Religion-1.png\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-20492\" width=\"590\" height=\"331\" alt=\"\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few years ago, I wrote a post with the title \u201cAdvice for Those Buying a Used Religion.\u201d The title was inspired by an analogy Carl Sagan makes in his book The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God, which is essentially a transcript of his Gifford Lectures. I thought [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":20493,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,85],"tags":[1581,1601,2303,9854,10169,10886,11379,13247],"class_list":["post-20491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religion","category-science","tag-car","tag-carl-sagan","tag-critical-thinking","tag-quote","tag-religion","tag-science","tag-skepticism","tag-used"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Advice for Those Buying a Used Religion<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A few years ago, I wrote a post with the title &quot;Advice for Those Buying a Used Religion.&quot; The title was inspired by an analogy Carl Sagan makes in his\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/01\/advice-for-those-buying-a-used-religion-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Advice for Those Buying a Used Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A few years ago, I wrote a post with the title &quot;Advice for Those Buying a Used Religion.&quot; The title was inspired by an analogy Carl Sagan makes in his\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/01\/advice-for-those-buying-a-used-religion-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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