Craig,

Great job with this site. Clearly, we live in an era of moral decadence, a time of egocentricity, intolerance, hatred, hypocrisy, disorder, flux, strife, chaos, and fear. We have become hedonistic materialists, consumed with the pursuit of pleasure and sensory gratification, making merry with intoxicants and drugs, and reveling in the “Playboy” philosophy. In fact, Playboy magazine founder Hugh Heffner is often portrayed in the media as a great success story, even a role model for many.

Can any thinking person doubt that today’s hedonistic materialism is a result of a loss of spiritual values, especially a lack of belief in the survival of consciousness? Can there be any other reason for it?

Carl Gustav Jung once wrote: “The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life. Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interest upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real importance.”

As I see it, it is impossible for a thinking person to find true purpose in life without a belief in survival. Limited, restricted, and temporal purpose, perhaps, but not true purpose. This belief must go beyond the blind or pseudo-faith of most religious practitioners. It must take the form of conviction. “Too many indeed hold the solemn verities concerning the hereafter in a sort of half consciousness, believing in them, yet nevertheless not fully realizing them,” wrote Dr. Madison Peters, a Christian author of a century ago. “They must flame within us, setting our whole moral and intellectual nature on fire, sending a life current of energy though every part of our being, arousing us to impetuous action and to sustained effort born of strong conviction."

Your web site should bring some light to souls drowning in the muck and mire of today's materialism. Those who demand "proof" rather than "evidence" should ponder the words given to Victory Hugo when he was communicating with spirit through a medium. Hugo asked the spirit, who claimed to be Martin Luther, why God does not better reveal Himself. The response came: “Because doubt is the instrument which forges the human spirit. If the day were to come when the human spirit no longer doubted, the human soul would fly off and leave the plough behind, for it would have acquired wings. The earth would lie fallow. Now, God is the sower and man is the harvester. The celestial seed demands that the human ploughshare remain in the furrow of life.”