Depression and anxiety resulted from the guilt and fear over my doubts and inability to control my thoughts and force myself to believe. I cried myself to sleep at night, praying and begging for god to reassure me it was all true. I never got an answer.

Finally I came to accept my atheism and there is too much emotional baggage for me to ever go back to faith.

I kinda mean, there is more than one way.

When trying to smell the color 9 doesn’t work.

We have to realize that 9 is not a color,
and even if it was, you can’t smell a color.

God’s existence does not depend on our comprehension of a soul.
Just like playing starcraft doesn’t require me to understand the difference between a dual core and a hexacore processor and how electricity powers it all.

We don’t need a full comprehension of the phenomena of individuality and consciousness in neuroanatomy before we accept that we are capable of morality, love, good, evil and so on.

But hey, we have the internet and google.

Personally I got a problem with organizations controlled by humans and thus I consider myself without ties to a specific denomination while still holding the basic beliefs of Creation/Salvation/Trinity/Salvation through Grace alone.

Enough of that.

With the case of what you stated, you are talking about the OT most likely since you mentioned genocide etc.

My personal version when I asked the theologian was.

Why would God command “Thou shalt not kill” and then himself send the Jews to destroy entire cities.

He said to me.
All those were fought in self defense , EXCEPT ONE.
And that was when God commanded them to police the world.

I was still young when I asked that, but I thought to myself, where does he get these stuff?
Aside from the obvious theology school and all that.

I then later found out about chat rooms and forums for that kind of discussions, and plenty of people were actually eager to help with my questions, theologians and theology students and just plain fans of theological discussions who took it as their hobby.

With your version, my gift for you would be something I recently just picked up.

Why were people killed for little things (supposedly)
What we do not know today in our modern society, was the culture back then.
Back then, people would create covenants, promises,and the likes.
We have a similar thing in my country. However we don’t take it seriously.
In the case of the Jewish people/Hebrews.
They made a covenant with God.
A covenant is somewhat a “Super Promise”
breakable only with the death of one of the involved parties.

In the Philippines, we often say “Peksman Mamatay man”
Meaning – Promise even if it means my death.

Well, back in those days. People really did bind their lives to their promises.

Now I know what you might be thinking but before you judge them for being “stupid”. Realize that looking at a culture and thinking that yours is superior to them is what we call ethnocentrism according to anthropology.
They can as easily look at our culture and simply say that we are people whose words have no value, whose promises are never kept, those who live without honor and thus do not deserve to live.(Or worse- inhuman)
-Kinda like the Japanese who fall on their swords when they cause dishonor to their family.-

I am curious though how you lived your life. What you did and now what of those things you stopped doing.
-That kinda shows a little, your views on what a Christian is-

prayer bible study church
singing and going to camp
attending the weekly/monthly missions trip

or was it something else?

Which fruits of the spirit did you produce?
Are you still producing them now?
Why/Why not?
(Are they now irrelevant to your life, now that you left?)

I spent years with those topics- obviously not 24/7 since I had to go to class, sleep and work and do other things too.

However I did spend time asking questions and having discussions with people. I also spent time in chat rooms, forums and other sites like those.
Rather than break down my faith, I came to see more and more that there are indeed good answers to all those questions if you are sincere in asking them.

The problem is when you ask a question and follow it up with 10 more questions and overwhelm the person who is only trying to help you.
Even if he does have all the answers, it just frustrates people that you couldn’t at least pace yourself or even google the very question for your own self at least for a couple of times.

That is, if it really mattered that much, leaving it wouldn’t have depended on coming up with a question, tossing it at someone, then walking away before hearing the answer.
Or in most cases, asking a theologian level question towards a Sunday school teacher level or even at new converts.