How to discuss religion with believers?

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So my question is: how do you engage in a discussion with these people without it derailing? It's as if they were willfully ignoring or filtering some information, I don't really get it. I'm not really trying to convert them, but rather trying to understand the reasoning that leads them to believe in whatever religion... but no matter how hard I try to understand, their logic is just not in order. Sometimes I'm literally asking them to help me believe in their religion, but every time it's just not enough information to warrant any belief.

For starters people's religious beliefs are often attached to their sense of self, and personal identities (so is atheism), so questioning people, particularly in a critical way, about things deeply personal to them, is often perceived as attacks, especially coming from someone you’re not that close to.

So the fact that you're often met with defensive responses shouldn’t be that surprising.

Most of these religions are sketchy and superficial and fail to address many points (eg, how are animals or plants judged? And what about cavemen that didn't know how to speak and communicate and just hit things with their club? And what about people who are born in such conditions where knowledge is kept hidden to them? What about people who are born physically or mentally ill and can't really help themselves? What about those who are forced to behave in some way? If we really must assume there is a creator, then I'd picture it as some neutral and uncaring entity that wanders in the universe. No hell or heaven, just something that spawns life here and there and moves on).

As a religious person myself, I don’t know any serious religious person invested in questions about how animals and plants are judged, I’m just struggling be a good dad, a husband, a brother, friend, fighting against my own selfish tendencies and resentments, working to restore all the broken pieces, that seem to have been broken for ages, long before I was even thought in anyone’s head.

I think an observation about a religious view, made by the writer Cormac McCarthy, while working with scientist at the Santa Fe Institute sums it best:

“I have friends at the Institute. They’re just really bright guys who do really difficult work solving difficult problems, who say ““It’s really more important to be good than it is to be smart.” And I agree it is more important to be good than it is to be smart. That is all I can offer you.”