Searching for the Common Thread within Religions.

In conversations about religion and the manyness of religions, one often hears, in general as well as scholarly discussions, remarks about what all the religions have in common. It is generally taken for granted that despite the evident, often flamboyant, diversity of religions, there is something that they all share, or something that holds them together in what even scrupulous historians of religions call "family resemblances." The image of a "common thread" (or threads)is often used to suggest that if we look closely and carefully enough, we will find something that is understo