Eternity is a Very Long Time

Eternity is a word that is used to describe forever, an endless, eternal amount of time, that cannot be measured, except in its passing. These days, science has two possible scenarios for the nature of time, one is that time had a beginning, perhaps at the point the big bang happened, and the other is an eternal universe, with no beginning and end of time: eternity.

I remember hearing a story about a homeless man who used to roam the streets, writing with a piece of chalk "eternity", wherever he went on the sidewalks, and road. I feel a strong connection to this man, because he probably had the understanding that I do, that the universe moves in eternal circles, big bang to big crunch, to the next big bang, and back again, an endless loop in which an infinite amount of universes are possible.

The question is, if the universe is eternal, and moves in circles, from one version of the universe to the next, is it completely different each time? Is it exactly the same as this one? Even if there was an almost endless amount of possible universes, that a big bang could create, the truth is, there is only a limited amount. There is only so much material in the universe, it is not infinite like time.

So, there is a great possibility, that I have written these exact words before, and you have read them, and that my life and yours happened in exactly the same way, in some other version of the universe in the far distant past. What this means is that everything that happens, has happened before, and will happen again, an infinite amount of times, and that anything that can possibly happen has happened before and will happen again, eternally. 

Eternity is an endless amount of time, in which an almost endless amount of events can take place, and will take place, over and over again, without end. Now this may seem comforting if you focus on the positive things that could happen, and scary, if you think of all the negative things that are possible. But the truth is, it all seems to balance out in the end. For every bad event that happens, there seems to be a positive on the other end of the scale.

We as humans, should be able to work our way to a better future that slowly eliminates suffering in favor of joy. How do I know that time and space is eternal? Simply due to the fact that if there was a beginning of space/time, there couldn't have been, because in a complete void, there would be no reaction that could take place that would create the universe. 

Nothing can come out of nothing, and therefore there was never a time when nothing existed, it goes against the laws of physics. Time is eternal, life is eternal, and everything is eternal. As for God, I like the Buddhist idea of God is everything. But that's another subject.