Do we have a soul?--

For all we know, the universe was for many billions of years before I came to consciousness. It will be for many billions after my body rots away. Is my being & memories only a brief spark in this enormous process ? Time is the only thing we know that doesn't change. It is always now. What happens when, as far as we know, our nows end.

Religious fairy tales tell us of eternity. We think of eternity as a very long time. But is eternity now. We have an old joke, people dream of eternity, but they are bored on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Scientists have no idea what the connection is between consciousness & brain activity. They know they can create certain feelings & thoughts by stimulating areas of the brain, but the relationship between the firing of synapses & the flow of neuro -hormones with experience is unclear. We don't really know how physical brain activity relates to consciousness. Does our consciousness end when our body dies?

But then what are our lives? Are they, as Shakespeare said, "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound & fury, signifying nothing" in the maelstrom of existence? Scientists tell us our universe may be only one of many universes, and this universe will someday end with a bang or a whimper. Does it matter to us that the universe will end, because our petty lives will end much sooner?

Many dream of a hard drive existence, called the Akashic records, where our egos & experience can be stored &, perhaps, called up later. We would love to believe our precious selves are not ephemeral blips on the vast cosmic panorama. In other words, do we have a soul, something of our being that will survive physical death? We would very much like it to be so, but liking it to be so doesn't make it so. Our wish cannot create reality.