*Matthew enters*

[Matthew]

What "thoughts" were these exactly? Please elaborate.

Good question, thank you. I'll try to enumerate the different tensions involved:

1. Nihilism vs. Realism
I was unable to be a consistent nihilist. I had constructed a valueless world with no good or evil, beauty or ugliness, meaning or significance. Yet in the way I lived, I passively campaigned for the existence of these things daily by my attempts to live a good life, my awareness of my moral failings, my arguments against injustice, my desire to make beautiful music. Actively, however, I was unable to acknowledge the reality of these things because my nihilism was derived, not from intuition or observation, but from my commitment to naturalism.

2. Naturalism vs. Reason
I was equally unable to be a consistent naturalist. My naturalism was basically an extrapolation from unguided evolution, viewing the world as a closed system of matter and energy acting on matter and energy. This had the fortunate consequence of ruling out any possibility of God from my world. I very much shared the view of atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel when he said that: "I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that."

Conflicting with this was (what I would now call) my "epistemology of metaphysics" - or simply, how I thought I knew that naturalism was true. Fundamental to this was Darwin's question: "Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" I found no good counter to this question, and yet my belief in naturalism had to depend on trusting the capacity of my mind to come to true conclusions about metaphysics.

3. My misconceptions about God vs. The Biblical Conception of God
Having being brought to church by my mum as a youngster, I had some knowledge (albeit patchy and distorted) of Christian theology. I had many facile arguments against the Christian God, but when challenged to defend them based on what the Bible said I was, more often than not, completely flummoxed and exposed as simply applying my assumptions.

4. My doubts vs. My doubts about my doubts
I had built up plenty of obstacles in between myself and Christianity, about the existence of God, the accuracy of the New Testament's portrayal of Jesus, the historicity of the Resurrection, and so on. But when I examined the foundations of these doubts with the same vigour as I used to defend them, I found that my arguments did not hold water without assuming the falsity of Christianity. In every area I was begging the question, ultimately stemming from my desires against accepting it and holding on the naturalist, nihilist universe I had made for myself.

I recognised that I was being drawn towards the Christian God, despite my desires against this. Because of these desires, I was under the impression that something else (perhaps chance, necessity, God's direction, I did not know) was involved other than myself.

You had desires against the Christian God? Did I get that right? How does this make any sense if we're speaking retrospectively, i.e. before your conversion, you supposedly didn't even believe it was god to start with did you not?

"This" refers to "being drawn towards the Christian God". If I had desires against the Christian God, Who as you rightly point out I did not believe existed, I would have said "my desires against Him".

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So what would compel you to convert? Further, if you didn't directly or indirectly sense or interact with God during this experience, what compelled you to convert?

Indeed, this is the very question I asked myself after my conversion. As I did then, I still think the best explanation is the transforming power of God, as I have already said here, with the Biblical witness of other Christian conversions as a precedent. As an atheist, of course, you will have to assume that my conversion was a product of circumstance, chance and other factors outside of my control - but that is the burden you must carry, not me.