I'm not sure, but my answer will probably get me in trouble, I've been worrying with this question all day. Someone mentioned theatre, and I was reminded of that scene from Gladiator where Maximus is limbering up his swotrd arm just before the afternoon show at the colussium where he's going to whack a couple of heads for the enjoyment of the Roman Mob, and he says to Oliver Reed, "Marcus Aurelius had a dream that was Rome, this is not it. This is NOT it."
Distraction is so easy today, its our society, our way of life. We are amusing ourselves to death. We westerners live in a lap of luxury never before experienced in the history of man, all the while polluting the shit out of this planet and frivolously using up our resources, like taking 5000 calories of energy to produce a 1000 calories of food. We've bred like rats because our intellect taught us how to make an abundance of food using artificial but finite means and methods, and, so far, the weather has agreed with us. Did you know that in Darfur, there are groups of women who, each day, strap their babies onto their back and walk for miles trying to find enough food to survive the day. An article in the Washington Post told about how so many people have been reduced to eating termites in order to survive. People whine about God killing 6 billion people at Armegeddon, but he doesn't have to do a thing, we'll do it for him, and be so pleased with ourselves in the process. So we can talk about destiny, and philosophy, and morality and shite like that because we've got full stomachs, and time on our hands. To what ever sense and direction we choose, we have that utmost of luxuries: the ability to have faith in something. Why, somebody will figure something out, things will just go on.
Maybe so, I certainly hope that is true. But did God make it this way? I don't know, I wasn't there; but, if he did, he is one sick son of a bitch. Does he want us to learn and explore and examine and be curious? If he exists, of course he does (why else build a cosmos?). But I think he intended for EVERYBODY to do it. But there isn't much we can do, I mean, the system has been set in motion and it's not like anybody could Fed Ex a loaf of bread to Ethiopia or something. Right? Your question is legitimate, and a good one, but sometimes I think the whole book of Job was not about whether man might keep his integrity if the face of adversity, or any of that crapola, it was Satan saying to God: look, I don't care what anybody does, these f*ckers just ain't gonna get it! It doesn't seem to matter how far into the night sky we can fly, or look, or how high the buildings are that we make, or how intellectual our thoughts, because if there is just one starving person, one single child who dies a needless death anywhere on this orb, we have missed the whole point of intelligent existence.