DOCTRINE AND RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS 57sort of popular religious perspective that supposes all religions to be down-
deep identical; this sort of religion, of course, is different from those
religions (most if not all others) that do not think that religions do not
differ.^11 If you accept the claim that all religions are the same as part of your
sacred or secular religion, you may have as much trouble in admitting that
not all religions are the same as members of the Flat Earth Society have in
admitting the earth is an oblate spheroid.^12
The thing to note here^13 is that none of these sorts of views can be made
compatible with any of the religious traditions we have been describing; they
are not expositions of, and they are plainly incompatible with, those
perspectives. This is highly relevant, since these views are often presented as
compatible with, if not as expositions of, one or more of these traditions;
they are not.
The question arises as to whether, in some significant sense, all religions
are really the same. As we have seen, in various senses they are not. They
teach different doctrines, and if some of those doctrines are true, then others
are false. They appeal to experiences that differ in content and structure; if
some of those experiences are reliable, then the others are not. They propose
different diagnoses and cures, and if one of those diagnoses is true, then
others are false and if one of those cures is genuine, then the others are not.
So, in various senses of the same – making the same claims, appealing to the
same experiences, proposing the same diagnoses, offering the same cures – it
is emphatically false that all religions are the same. What other senses of
“are the same” might there be?
Identity
Two kinds of identity: content identity and function identity
The question as to whether all religions are the same raises another: the same
regarding what? Once we see this, we can see our question splitting in two:
Do all religions have the same doctrinal content? Do they all serve the same
psychological and/or social function? Do all religions have content-identity,
and do they all have function-identity?
Low standards for identity: vagueness, generality, and trivial results
In spite of the partial descriptions we have offered of four religious
traditions, it is possible to answer the question concerning content-