...I believed a being called God was communicating with me and I believed I could feel his presence.
Then you have to go through life knowing that you were either deluded on an experiential, intellectual and emotional level in that period or that you are now.
I feel you are trying to shift the burdon of proof here. I claimed I had faith in the Christian God and then lost my faith. The analysis about trust and doubt was yours and you bear the burdon of proof for that which was your mechanism for trying to prove that I was No True Christian, thereby artificially releasing yourself from anxiety about your own position.
Among the mistakes you're making there is the "No True Christian/Scotsman" attempt. I never said anything of the sort. I can watch someone run, or play piano and understand an injury they sustain that drives them off the track or keys without suggesting they weren't runners/pianists, respectively. You don't make me anxious. I'm genuinely sorry for you, as opposed to the "bless your heart" variety.
Then demonstrate it positively. Why should we all believe?
...Because it's intellectually, emotionally and even biologically more compatible with a healthy and happy existence, true or not. Because at the very worst and least it's a better, more optimistic and productive, socially cohesive context than any alternative. That's the broad stroke. The much longer argument goes into our psychological makeup, sociological/historical examination of mankind and logical appeals based on observations relating thereto.
Doubt usually isn’t about being willful or playing games with oneself as you seem to think it is.
Doubt is the failure to trust, to entertain the notion that what should be certain to you isn't. It is the measuring and reduction of certainty to probability. It is a hedged bet and a doomed philosophy.
And that is missing from your understanding, to tragic consequence. So you are cut off from the thing you loved.
