*Matthew enters*

[Welsh cake]

I didn't say that I thought God was communicating with me.

Yes you did. You said you were the intended recipient of God's thoughts. You are saying that the Christian God is, or was, communicating with you at some point in events that led up to your conversion.

You have misunderstood me; my saying that "I did not perceive God" was to clarify that I did not directly sense or interact with God prior to my conversion (at least not to my knowledge).

Why the backpedaling? If you did not sense the consciousness of a deity then why make the claim in the first place? Why say you were under the "impression" it was god from your extrasensory perception/experience when you weren't having a paranormal experience to begin with?

My speaking of "wrestling with something outside of myself" is referring to the feeling that my thinking was being guided in a particular direction despite my willingness to go in another, and my interpretation of that as being God's guidance is made in the light of my new-found beliefs after the fact.

Once again, I don't doubt your testimonial account that you "sensed something", though my standards of evidence remain unconvinced that it was a god involved because trying to demonstrate to anyone else you had a brush with the supernatural is simply unrealistic. A sensation or revelation that you are "part of something bigger" is a natural human response we all experience at some point or other in our lives, theists attribute it to god or gods, but atheists can and do experience this without any requirement for supernatural deities because the feeling is the awe of comprehending a complex natural reality that we all exist in it.

When you behold the size, scope and scale of the cosmos, you are a witness to the cosmos, any subsequent human response of elated joy is not evidence of a god, neither is a downward spiral of depression evidence of said god's demonic foil. Your feelings and mine have no bearing upon reality, they are irrelevant.

You will have to explain exactly what this contradiction is based on what you understand Scripture to teach regarding predestination and repentance.

Matthew can you answer one question? I'm asking you politely what branch of Christian theology that deals with salvation you would regard as true, because it is through this interpretation of the soteriology you are establishing what makes someone a Christian.