Lots of real intellectual people have a hard time believing in God. Every time someone finds a fossil that looks older or a star that seems to be farther away, they reinforce the conclusion at the basis of their lives. “If there is a God, He is so weak and far away that we have no reason to be concerned about Him.
They look at a picture of some distant cluster of stars like this:
and immediately c0nclude “There is no way God could have made this, especially in anything less than billions of years.”
Catholic Fundamentalism, on the other hand, understands why such things must be. “God, The Loving Programmer, wanted each and every human program to have free will while The Creation Program ran. Since the human programs had to be free to make and use telescopes, He had to provide things for them to see. Otherwise, they’d see all the blackness and conclude: ‘God must have put us here. There’s nothing else we can see that could have put us here.’”
To give us free will, He had to download things like these distant galaxies. Otherwise, people could find Him by means of our intellects. That shows us He values our faith more than our minds. Such stage props provide free will. Our reaction to His stage props determines our degree of humility.
No matter how large the telescope, or how powerful the microscope, He has programmed things for us to find. Stage props provide free will. We choose to see His programming power as their source, or we don’t. That’s one way He weeds out the vain souls who think they’re smart enough to tell whether or not He exists in such a powerful form as should be heeded.
Understanding that He has the power to program and download The Creation Program for the sake of saving a comparatively few human souls is a first step. All of us human programs have the ability to believe and obey. Those who do both may be saved.