the end, death, blackness – the fear of all fears…  the fear that is driving us crazy…  the fear that keeps us up at night…   I still keep to the notion that infinity exists and therefore there must not be an end.  The universe will always be.  The end would again imply that there is such a thing as nothing.  Then, therefore, if nothing can create something, wouldn’t after the death of the universe it would come back again through nothing.  Like a cycle…  which again would be more like the idea of infinity.  There are definitive life cycles of certain organic compounds (such as ourselves), but that in no way implies that everything must have a similar life cycle.  In fact, as stated earlier, maybe life is always existing but in different forms at different times.  Atoms, ions, the smallest particles being conserved and converted into different energies.  So, atoms maybe the the particles of life continuing to live forever…  The transfer of matter helps things continue forever – thus reinforcing the idea of an infinite universe.    Maybe the feeling of reincarnation occurs because in the cycle of the universe nothing, birth, life and death – then repeat – is occurring the same exact way every time.  Maybe we’ve already lived this same exact life a million times over (or an infinite times over).  The end is something we personally worry about, because it means the end of us (ego).  Not the end of the universe, but rather the end of ourselves.  And sometimes, we feel so frightened by the subject of the end, we postulate theories of mythological worlds beyond this universe – to provide us with hope that our suffering in this life is for something bigger.  If there is such a heaven (god created), then there must be rules and laws governing such a system.  Thus, the theory of the soul must also contain laws and rules that can be observed, measured and replicated.  To date, this has never been observed, measured or replicated.  It has only been a theory by many ancient theologians from across the spectrum (different areas of the world at different times).  It is possible that we do not have the proper measurement tools to record such a “soul”, but it is highly unlikely (as we can dissect a human through apparatuses such as an MRI, Xray, or even a literal dissection through knives).  One of my main theories is that the idea of the “soul” is to help us cope with the “real” world.  Mysticism and mythology helps us cope with the unexplainable – like all good fairy tales, it puts a “happy ending” to the story.  No one wants to hear that the your ego goes black when you die.  They want to hear that everything is going to be okay, that we will live forever in heaven.  On another note, heaven is an interesting position, as it states that if you do not accept god as your own god that not only are not going to heaven but you are going to hell (suffering for eternal damnation forever).  Sounds pretty extreme.  So, let me get this straight, I could be acting like Mother Theresa but if I didn’t follow the religion, I would go to hell.  Sounds like an unreasonable and stubborn god to me.