re: I have a quiet envy of religious people

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Care to elaborate?

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I was a happier, more peaceful person when i believed in Christ and God.

I dont have that belief anymore. I didnt lose it flippantly. It was a painful process for me that shook me completely. And i cant just forget all the research and thinking that its built on. And the only way i could is if i pretended to, and im not sure that is even a thing.

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I’m curious what information you learned that caused you to reject the Faith.

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Not gonna go down that rabbit hole. I wouldnt want to infect someone else's faith, nor would you be able to counter all those points.

Ive read and listened and spoken with brilliant christians. In the end they all suspend the logical parts of their brains and say "you cant worry about that fact or that contradiction. You need faith. Just believe" and thats such a disappointment.

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Not gonna go down that rabbit hole. I wouldnt want to infect someone else's faith, nor would you be able to counter all those points. Ive read and listened and spoken with brilliant christians. In the end they all suspend the logical parts of their brains and say "you cant worry about that fact or that contradiction. You need faith. Just believe" and thats such a disappointment

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Are there no other aspects of your life where you don’t know something for sure but have faith it’s true or will occur?

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The KNOWING what you believe is right, despite everything, and finding solace and comfort in that.

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Not sure what the bold part refers to. I came to my faith based on a reasoned process. I do not ignore anything in the approach. The place I diverted to faith in God is the point many divert to non-faith - neither path has empirical evidence to support that decision. I just believed that there was so much evidence in favor of a creator up to that point that there must be one.

Once I stepped off at that "point of faith" God had revealed himself to me more and more.

By the way as others have said, there is still room for you, no matter your sins.

Credit to the OP, for sincere expression. One which I share. Wish I was physically capable of typing what I would like to share, but just too difficult.

I have begged the lord God almighty to come into my heart. Still trying.

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I have to say though, I sometimes feel very judged by the religious when they know this of me.

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So what if they judge you?

Newsflash, EVERYONE you meet and know judges you.

There are some really good Christians and there are some bad people who falsely claim to be Christians, it happens.

If you TRULY seek Christ and accept him, the people who judge and doubt you won't matter one bit anyway.

If you REALLY accept Christ, he will accept you right back.

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We are all born with different capacities.

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Look, I know movies aren't real life, but just for fun, watch "Sergeant York".

There's a great scene in that movie having to do with Alvin York's religious conversion that is very powerful.

It literally has nothing to do with anything, but I love the way it illustrates a very strong, wild, prideful persons' path to God and the scene where he is surrounded by family and loved ones and the Pastor points to the floor, York falls to his knees is very powerful.

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Not gonna go down that rabbit hole. I wouldnt want to infect someone else's faith, nor would you be able to counter all those points.

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Try me.

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Ive read and listened and spoken with brilliant christians. In the end they all suspend the logical parts of their brains and say "you cant worry about that fact or that contradiction. You need faith. Just believe" and thats such a disappointment.

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I've been defending the Faith for a few decades. While I'm not a brilliant theologian, I have heard pretty much every argument against Christianity and so far I haven't seen an argument that can't be addressed.

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To those saying that you can have it too, you have to understand, some people's brains are so logical that we can't make that leap in believing something without direct and obvious evidence.

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This isn't a matter of logic. Logic is about reasoning, not necessarily convincing others. There are all sorts of logical arguments that are consistent and sound yet don't convince others. What you're describing is a lack of persuasion on your part, not whether the Christian faith is rational.

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Then there's the whole history of being lied to about things we know were not true now by lots of religions.

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What claims, specifically? I'm not a proponent of religious pluralism. I believe the Christian faith that is predicated on the historical biblical narrative of Jesus Christ, the son of God, becoming a man, obeying the obligations of the moral law of God for mankind and dying an unjust death so that man can be reconciled to God. I don't believe all religious claims hold the same weight in the discussion. Several major religions boil down the personal opinions of revered "holy men" that weren't claiming any sort of divine inspiration from above. Why should an arbitrary opinion of man be on the same level as the claim of revelation from an omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent deity?

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The claims that were made over the years that proved to be false or impossible.

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Which claims are proven false and "impossible"?

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I know that's not fair to just general deist that never made any specific claims but just believe in a higher power. To me, that's a more defensible claim and for me personally, a possibility.

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The Deist has no justification for their specific personal beliefs. Their general belief in the existence and power of God is testified to by Paul in Romans chapter 1 in the Bible, but beyond that, the Deist is left with nothing but pure speculation as they don't get their specific theological understanding from any sort of revelational source.

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I think for people like me, it's harder when people claim specific saviors as if there aren't thousands of other religions out there that could also be correct.

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They all can't be correct in the same way and at the same time. The different religions make exclusive claims that contradict the claims and beliefs of other religions. It would be a violation of the law of non-contradiction to say they are all correct at the same time. They can all be wrong, or one may be right, but they all can't be right.

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It seems like the height of arrogance to claim that your God or savior is the right God or savior and everybody else's throughout all of history is wrong.

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Whose arrogance are you talking about? I'm a Christian. I believe that God has provided a testimony of His actions and descriptions of His character to humanity in an effort to commune with us. This testimony contradicts what all other world religions teach. If I am to believe the Bible, by default I have to reject all others. Why is that arrogance?

Arrogance would be if I chose the Bible as my personal favorite book in some arbitrary way and then proceeded to reject all others simply because they didn't appeal to my vanity. In that case, my personal preference would be the sole decider of right and wrong rather than the object of my preference. Arrogance is making it all about yourself. Christians are to make their faith about their Lord and do all things for His glory, not ours. The Bible teaches a salvation by God's grace and mercy, not by our own merits. That's the opposite of human arrogance.

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It truly is a matter of faith.

Eta: y'all should feel lucky you're capable of such leaps. The solace that it brings must be extremely comforting.

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Faith is required for salvation but it's not a leap of faith to mentally assent what the Bible teaches at all. It's entirely reasonable and only seems impossible or unreasonable in a worldview that rejects the underlying premise that precedes the claims, notably the existence of God.