Why are there so many ’strange’ elements in religion?

I think some people today, in this age of reason, find religion fundamentally foolish as defined by various ’strange’ practices and beliefs. All religions seem to have them: The Old Testament has fantastic stories of men getting swallowed by fish, 900 year olds, and talking snakes and donkeys. The Catholics talk about eating the literal flesh and blood of their God. The Orthodox light candles and put them in front of shrines enclosing pieces of bone and hair from dead saints. The Protestants have a God that stopped talking two thousand years ago and put ultimate faith in a book pieced together by a committee. The Muslims pray to one particular city, walk around a stone, and believe Arabic is the only language through which God communicates. Buddhists built colossal sculptures of a certain philosopher, give food to the dead, and spin wheels as prayers. Hindus have an incredible assembly of Gods living in soap opera dramas. The Mormons talk about angels handing over stacks of gold metal plates to a boy who translated it by looking through special stones. They are all quite fantastic when viewed from the outside. Why would they all have elements like that? If there is truth behind them why would God use such strange mechanisms?

I would expect God to have a consistent message across all time, cultures, and languages. I would expect the message would be understandable and meaningful to great philosophers as well as poor illiterate farmers. With those expectations I can understand a God using symbolism, telling stories with layers of meanings, and relying on physical objects, including a written record, to teach a common message across generations. These are fundamentally exemplary teaching methods. Methods that can be simple yet expansive. Methods that are conducive to contemplation and memory, such as tying teachings to the physical world around us or having elements that are fantastic and out of the norm. All modern day memory techniques rely on using visual images combined with elements of exaggeration, exuberance, and high impact, and then pegging bits of information to those images. So I wouldn’t be surprised to find such simple yet fantastic elements intermixed in messages coming from a Divine teacher.

However those same techniques and strategies can be used by men who want to secure power and prominence. The masses are easier to control when they are ignorant and reliant on superiors for information. Therefore, I think it can be wise to be suspicious. Being suspicious is good if it is accompanied by sincere inquiry with a desire to discover truth. Being suspicious can be bad if it leads to a dismissal of all, getting more pleasure in tearing things down, or giving up in the search for knowledge, because such an attitude can lead to all sorts of negative consequences, both for society and the individual. The difficulty thus becomes deciphering truth from error and the question becomes ‘how can one know’ which I wrote about previously.

I think there is also a sense that God cannot interact in this world in a physical way. This belief has its foundation in Greek philosophy regarding physical matter. It was adopted by the theologians and intermixed with religious doctrine. But trends in philosophy would not stop truth or limit God in the way he communicates with man.

On the opposite extreme you have the belief that God will show himself in the shape of a potato chip or weeping picture. And so the strange and unbelievable are also projected by believers who have zeal without knowledge. While such cases can be faith-diminishing for the educated it does not mean that God has not or cannot interact with the physical world. Again, just calling for increased wisdom in judgment.

My last thought has my own religious assumptions but if life is fundamentally a kind of test of our loyalty and choices of priority then leaving some ambiguity becomes crucial to that test. So no matter how much we would like to know the answers to every question immediately, a wise organizer of this earthly experience, in pursuing his ultimate objectives for us, would leave some questions unanswered. Such a strategy is merciful and ingenious.