There is a phrase of facile liberality uttered again and again
at ethical societies and parliaments of religion: "the religions
of the earth differ in rites and forms, but they are the same in
what they teach." It is false; it is the opposite of the fact.
The religions of the earth do not greatly differ in rites and forms;
they do greatly differ in what they teach. It is as if a man
were to say, "Do not be misled by the fact that the CHURCH TIMES
and the FREETHINKER look utterly different, that one is painted
on vellum and the other carved on marble, that one is triangular
and the other hectagonal; read them and you will see that they say
the same thing." The truth is, of course, that they are alike in
everything except in the fact that they don't say the same thing.
An atheist stockbroker in Surbiton looks exactly like a Swedenborgian
stockbroker in Wimbledon. You may walk round and round them
and subject them to the most personal and offensive study without
seeing anything Swedenborgian in the hat or anything particularly
godless in the umbrella. It is exactly in their souls that they
are divided. So the truth is that the difficulty of all the creeds
of the earth is not as alleged in this cheap maxim: that they agree
in meaning, but differ in machinery. It is exactly the opposite.
They agree in machinery; almost every great religion on earth works
with the same external methods, with priests, scriptures, altars,
sworn brotherhoods, special feasts. They agree in the mode
of teaching; what they differ about is the thing to be taught.
Pagan optimists and Eastern pessimists would both have temples,
just as Liberals and Tories would both have newspapers. Creeds that
exist to destroy each other both have scriptures, just as armies
that exist to destroy each other both have guns.

The great example of this alleged identity of all human religions