Full Idea
There is only a multitude of religions …and the differences between them are so great and so shocking that any common element that can be extracted is meaningless.
Gist of Idea
Religions are so shockingly diverse that they have no common element
Source
John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 9:7), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 7 'Construct'
Book Reference
Hildebrand,David: 'Dewey' [One World 2008], p.189
A Reaction
Religion is for Dewey what a game was for Wittgenstein, as an anti-essentialist example. I would have thought that they all involved some commitment to a realm of transcendent existence.