I had no one to guide me as a child, nobody of deep understanding. My first contact with wisdom came from sources like Socrates and Einstein. My first exposure to a real teaching came form learning about Zen. Later I found a teacher who practiced psychoanalysis. He discovered others he thought were Knowers like Gurdjieff and later Sufism which I studied for a time.
As a child I believed in God and that he would set everything right, that after death everything would be fixed, the evil would reap what they had sown and those who suffered unjustly would find eternal life but because my Mother told me to be honest and I loved science, everything fell away because ir felt dishonest to believe without proof. I tried my best to prove that there is an absolute good but I failed. Nothing in the West that I read looking for answers worked. My world went black. As a result of reading Zen I went through a period of intense introspection as to what those folk were saying as they seemed not to need a believ in God but did not suffer like I did. I could not understand how that was possible but it did provide me with the idea they weren't kidding or faking it, that their enlightenment thingi might be real. The shock of Zen, the existence of a vastly different incomprehensible point of view rearranged my mind enough to have a sudden insight that answered all my questions. In a flash I ceased to suffer. I think there are a thousand paths and they all lead nowhere unless the one you are on has heart. You will find God in no other place. The kingdom of heaven is within.
I want to acknowledge the effort you put into your post to me and the well wishes behind it. My experience was that guilt is a process of belief in things things like good and evil, virtue and sin. I became a non believer while retaining attachment to belief. I think sin is what happens when people believe they are sinful but want to deny it. I learned all the habits of denial. I am trying to unlearn them by not feeding the beast. My only source of motivation for doing so is just because I decided I want to. Sometimes I forget that too.
As sincere and self-aware as your write up is (shared by countless others, broadly speaking), it describes a process about understanding life that completely conflicts with what God had written in His bible. As a result, it is not surprising that this path led you nowhere near a relationship with Him both here on earth and for eternity in heaven.
What's so wrong from God's perspective, one might ask? Over thirty times in the three paragraphs you reference the main subject of yourself. In the end, you see your life as mainly about you. Of course, you're not alone in that since it could be said of most people to varying degrees, but Christianity is the complete inverse of that perspective. You were created first and foremost to glorify God:
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Isaiah 43:7
Everyone who is called by My name, and
whom I have created for My glory, whom I have formed, even whom I have made.”
Psalm 67:3
"Let the peoples praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You."
Psalm 86:9
"All nations whom You have made shall come and worship before You, O Lord, and they shall glorify Your name."
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After understanding this hierarchy of who a person is to prioritize, can a person then focus on me, me, me? Nope. Jesus was once asked what the greatest commandment is, and after He gave a response that reflects the bible quotes I just posted, He then mentioned what is the second greatest commandment:
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Matthew 22: 37-39
And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"
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God first, your "neighbor" is second, and everything else follows from that. Backing up this admittedly
extremely narrow perspective about what connects one to God and what does not, the bible shares countless passages as to why that is. Here's just one quote from Jesus about it:
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John 7:13-14
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it."
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When He states that "the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction", Jesus is including pretty much everything you wrote in your post. He also includes every single path that any one throughout the ages pursues to satisfy them in this life (and false perceptions beyond it) as well.
Conversely, Jesus indicates here and in other passages throughout the bible that He is the narrow gate. That's it. There is no other option according to Him. Jesus says elsewhere that "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me (John 14:6)". Even the seemingly benign statement of discovering true wisdom through the likes of Socrates and Einstein (who projected more intelligence than wisdom) is countered with this verse:
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Psalm 111:10a
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all those who do His commandments"
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Any approach that leaves out the God of the bible leaves out Christianity. So every person including yourself has to make a decision based on what the Lord is saying. If Jesus was a liar or insane or completely ignorant about how life really works, you have nothing to worry about. Pursue your chosen path as far as it takes you.
If He is right though, then that changes everything. Going the way of the gate that is wide and broad, which is every way but through Him, gets narrower and narrower and leads to only one outcome: destruction. Hell is its destination.
It's kind of ironic that the complete opposite happens to the person who chooses to accept Jesus' forgiveness of all offenses committed against God: that way gets wider and broader until one eventually gets to enjoy the unlimited happiness and joy to be found in heaven with the Lord and all other believers.
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John 10:14
"I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture."
John 3:36
"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him."
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