To start with, i don't believe in a creator to start with, so your effort on including me into your sphere of belief is futile. I agree on the fact of conservation of mass and energy, and the physical and chemical transformation of my body.
And there one thing that bugs me about the believers. You guys never hold back to mock the scientists when we have discrepancies in test results but always comes in forefront to lecture about the preaching of books on any such instances. Do you have any personal manifestation of conservation of consciousness or any valid data to back that up with?
As per consciousness is concerned, even computers can be programmed to develop primitive form of emotions and consciousness. Read about the recent publications on Game theory. In my university there is active work going on artificial intelligence and machine-human interface, and there are programs which can replicate human emotions. If i die, my consciousness is dies with me. Consciousness is a state of understanding of stimulus around me. That is why my consciousness prompts me to work for the betterment of mankind every day, and for some to run an aircraft into to a building. Can you equate both at same level?
If you take a microbe, and subjects it to stimulus to modify it's homeostasis, it'll adapt to the environment to nullify the effect of the stimulus for stable homeostasis, that is its level of consciousness. Now increase the level of complexity and intelligence of the cellular being, the complexity of the consciousness increases along with the intelligence.
By 2080, machines will surpass human intelligence and develop superior consciousness than ours. What will be your answer then?