Personally, I understand your confusion. But the dots ARE connectable. It's simply that most Christians have the wrong understanding of the biblical context of God. I would recommend a study on the difference between monergism and synergism. These are two entirely different perspectives of God. Most believers subscribed to synergism which has warped views on hell, heaven, knowing God, justification, atonement, on and on and on. Monergism focus on God's sovereignty. If you understand the sovereignty of God you'll understand the answers (well, most). As my friend Dr. E would say, there are very few shades of grey.
God is loving. We are not. If we understood this we wouldn't get wrapped up in "Why would a loving God give us eternal torment?" The answer to that question is that we ask for it-maybe not directly but we still ask for it. It's like the rich man and Lazarus, we wouldn't even ask forgiveness if we saw the feast of Abraham right before our eyes and we were burning in hell. That's how evil we are. The problem is few wants to admit they're evil. It's all this, "I'm OK, You're OK." nonsense that float around us-not only in the secular world but in the Christian world as well.
All God wants us to do is to admit that we're this way and ask Christ His Son to cleanse us from this attitude. That's it. And then one will know God exists.
Well, most of your post could spawn a LOT of discussion and questions, but we are in total agreement on your last statement:
“All God wants us to do is to admit that we’re this way and ask Christ His Son to cleanse us from this attitude. That’s it. And then one will know God exists.”