3

What sorts of religion are there?

D

ifferent religions offer differing diagnoses and cures. Given that
criterion, there are a good many religions. The diagnosis that a
particular religion articulates asserts that every human person has a
basic nonphysical illness so deep that, unless it is cured, one’s potential is
unfulfilled and one’s nature cripplingly flawed. Then a cure is proffered.
The diagnosis and cure assume^1 (or, if you prefer, entail) the essential
structure of a religion’s view of what there is, at least insofar as what there
is has religious importance.
Not only are there different religions; there are different sorts of
religion. The notion of a sort or kind of religion is not a paradigm of clarity.
Perhaps this criterion will lend it some clarity:

Criterion 1: Religion A is of a different sort from Religion B if one
can have the problem that A diagnoses without having
the problem that B diagnoses, one can have the problem
that B diagnoses without having the problem that A
diagnoses, the cure that A proffers would not cure the
disease that B diagnoses, and the cure that B proffers
would not cure the disease that A diagnoses.

A different criterion that nonetheless will yield results that at least largely
overlap those we get from applying Criterion 1 is:

Criterion 2: Religion A is of a different sort from Religion B if what
must exist if A’s diagnosis and cure are correct can exist
without what must exist if B’s diagnosis and cure are
correct, and conversely.

A stronger version goes:

Criterion 3: Religion A is of a different sort from Religion B if what
must exist if A’s diagnosis and cure are correct cannot co-
exist with what must exist if B’s diagnosis and cure are
correct, and conversely.