I agree to a point that everything we are is a result of our past, but I equate our souls and conscience to some transient spot within our body; somehow not the result of chemical reactions or memories, but rather, imprinted from birth and left largely unshaped by experience, and yet influenced by our mind, whom takes our past into account.
I am unaware of how this could be, but conscience and lucidity seem too complicated and dynamic a state to be drawn in such a two-dimensional way. I am an atheist too, and yet I somehow do find a soul to exist; a kind of inherent energy taken from the world that makes up our conscience. Taken from the past, and from those around us. Those we are spawned from, et cetera. I can find no logical explanation for existence, or even more particularly, my existence, and so I find that conscience and soul, or whatever you may call it, may simply be undefinable by its very nature. I'm afraid it hurts my brain to so much as ponder it.
I mean, try, with all your power, to understand existence within your mind. It is overwhelming. It is, despite what humans may want, impossible to label.
I suppose that is why people are religious; religion offers a simple explanation for existence and for your life. I just cannot take such hard and fast explanations.
(But, since it is against the rules, I shan't get any further into religion)
I will write more tonight, I believe.