Intelligent people "less likely to believe in God"
This is really tearing me up right now, guys; I'm literally on the verge of tears. It makes me so very sad to see that people deemed intelligent are turning away from the gospel because they've gotten "too smart" for God. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4: "...if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" (emphasis mine).
Satan has used the gift of great intelligence with which God has blessed these people to convince them that He is simply the main character in a great fairy story. Science and reason can explain everything anymore, so what need is there for God? Maybe I'm naive, but I can't look at the world we live in without seeing God everywhere. Matter of fact, I can't get past how intricately He made me, so I really don't have to go that far to see evidence of a Creator.
"Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts[...]because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen." Romans 1:22-25 (emphasis mine)
This humanistic intelligence essentially says that we are our own god because we have outsmarted and out-thought Him. Religion becomes superstition in the revelation of enlightenment, and God becomes a frayed, ragged safety blanket clung to by those of us who are not educated enough to know any better. If you ask me, they've got more faith than I do for sure. I think it takes a lot more faith to believe that there is no God than to believe that there's Someone out there holding the universe in the span of His hand.
"For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.' Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (emphasis mine)
God was kinda cheeky in my opinion when He made it so we can't get to Him through our own means, by our own power, and via our own wisdom. He is known by faith in Christ, not through reason and science. Certainly we see God through these avenues, but that's now how we know Him. It might not make sense to our tiny human brains, but that's the way God wanted it.
With acknowledgement of a higher power comes responsibility to that higher power, and humans don't like that. I'll readily admit to being one of them, but part of the beauty of the gospel is this: when you follow Christ and surrender fully to His will, you are free in Him. You're no longer bound to the weight of you and the junk you carry around. It's freedom. If that makes me unintelligent, so be it. I'd rather have Jesus than men's applause.
(I really never intend to write this much, and I've got a lot more to say, but I need to sleep. I guess I'm just opinionated. Best be bracing for the backlash to come. =P)
