From: danielthomasandrewdaly@live.com.au   
      
   Why Jesus is not the Messiah   
      
       
      
   Dear Christopher (and whoever reads this)   
      
       
      
   This email is a deliberate attempt to proselytize you to Noahide faith.  There   
   is no point in pretending otherwise.  The main reason I am doing this is   
   because you have a reasonable interest in Christian faith, but are also   
   willing to listen to an    
   opposing critical point of view.   
      
       
      
   Testimony   
      
   I was brought up Roman Catholic and attended the Catholic Church, first in   
   Berridale and then in Cooma until about 16 years of age.  At this point I left   
   the church, not because of any belief reasons, but because of boredom.   
      
       
      
   However, at that stage, the truth was I didn’t really have any thing   
   approaching a realistic faith in God, despite having been an altar boy.  I   
   probably believed in God, but didn’t care about religion really, and   
   gradually became agnostic primarily    
   until about 22 to 23 years of age.  In that time period I started, soon after   
   leaving the church somewhat in 1988, but mainly upon arriving in Macarthur in   
   late 1990, going into great thinking about the existence of God.  I questioned   
   things greatly, but    
   usually concluded that while God probably didn’t exist, it couldn’t be   
   proven either way, so agnosticism was the realistic belief.  This may sound   
   strange, but I never gave evolution the slightest thought, and while I   
   didn’t believe in God at the    
   time, I didn’t believe in evolution either.  The thought of it never once   
   crossed my mind.   
      
       
      
   Growing up I stole a lot from my mothers purse – mainly money for lollies,   
   and stickers and, later on in my mid teens, for arcade money.  This persisted   
   and I didn’t completely quit until about 20, when I got convictions on the   
   issue.  However, while    
   studying at Lake Tuggeranong in 1990 and 1991 I stole (it might have been just   
   a little later) a book on philosophy for beginners.  Within this book were   
   arguments for the existence of God.   
      
       
      
   Some of them made no sense (the so called ontological argument I didn’t   
   really understand and thought was stupid (and still do)), but one argument   
   which made a great deal of sense was the argument from design.  Basically,   
   this argument goes that nature    
   and life is such an incredibly complex design with such beauty apparent in it,   
   that this is testimony to a creator and designer of sovereign power.  I   
   remember a time looking at the sky and looking at nature and, gradually, came   
   to completely agree with    
   this argument.  It was a very good one as I saw it, and concluded that God did   
   exist.  However, now that I know what my belief was, this would have been   
   called ‘Deist Creationism’ as  opposed to ‘deist evolutionary   
   creationism’.  I had no fixed    
   time of how old earth was, nor any beliefs about the first human beings, but I   
   believed in creationism.  I still, though, had no real views on evolution, but   
   definitely believed a creator was behind it all.   
      
       
      
   From about 1990 to 1995 I suffered severe depression.  When studying at CIT   
   from 1993 to 1995 at the Reid Campus in Civic I applied myself to my studies   
   with a decent effort for about the first time in my student life.  It was the   
   first time I really    
   studied properly and tried to do well in school.  The depression was always   
   bothering me.   
      
       
      
   At this time I was drawing crosses a lot on my notebooks, not out of any   
   religious beliefs, but I was doing it.  I was also writing 666’s a lot, and   
   sometimes my own quirky 667’s.  I got the 666 idea first of all from Iron   
   Maiden’s number of the    
   beast album, which I had listened to since Cooma years, but I had been   
   familiar with the number earlier since omen movies and so on.   
      
       
      
   But I wasn’t into any antichrist ideas, because I was simply deistic.  If   
   you had asked me at the time about an Antichrist I would have said that was   
   stupid.   
      
       
      
   There was a girl called ‘Ariel Cheng’ who was studying at CIT with me.    
   She was Asian, from Taiwan, extremely cute and slim (and had a beautiful butt,   
   which God showed me from behind once – in retrospect I think it was actually   
   God who made me look,   
    for various reasons – at the time, and still now, I was quite conservative   
   about females).  She was a pentecostal, and attended Assembly of God church.   
      
       
      
   I didn’t know it at the time, but she was witnessing to me with her quiet   
   and peaceful nature.  There was one time in class when everyone was giving a   
   speech and the wind was howling madly.  When she stood up the wind stopped and   
   when she had finished    
   the speech the wind started again.  For me it was a pivotal thing, and I   
   suspected God was behind it.   
      
       
      
   And then, one night in my room in Macarthur, the depression became so bad that   
   I needed to see someone, and I could only think of Ariel.  I rang her up at   
   the YWAM centre in Watson, and asked if I could visit her the following day.    
   I did, and all the    
   day travelling from Macarthur to Watson I could feel very heavy depression on   
   me.  Funnily enough, when I got to the YWAM grounds, the darkness left, and   
   inside the centre I felt peace.   
      
       
      
   We spoke for a while, I told her a few things, and then I left.  When I was   
   getting away from the grounds the darkness returned.   
      
       
      
   I had had enough.   
      
       
      
   I bought a Good News Bible from Woden Christian Bookshop on the way home, and   
   then got off the bus and went to the catholic church were my family goes.  It   
   was closed I think, but I sat at the doors and read the entire book of Job.    
   It was then I felt    
   the goodness of God and that the God of the Bible was the real and true God.   
      
       
      
   That night I went crazy over fears of hell and my sins, and the following day,   
   after seeing a priest, I went off alone and ended up jumping off a bridge near   
   parliament house without any shoes on.  This was my first schizophrenic   
   episode.   
      
       
      
   I hurt my back a little, and busted my foot.  My face also suffered.  They   
   ended up putting screws in my foot and a metal place in my face.  You can   
   still see the slight scar on my face, especially in photos.   
      
       
      
   However, I healed very quickly, and was soon raring to go.   
      
       
      
       
      
   NOW, the depression for the next 6 months was still there, but it was a bit   
   diminished.  It wasn’t as bad.  I started going back to the Catholic church   
   for 6 months, but upon returning to CIT for the final semester, I started   
   talking to Tammy Saunders,    
   and soon attended my first Potters House service, in November 1995.   
      
       
      
   You pretty much know most of the rest.   
      
       
      
       
      
       
      
   Now   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)