Are we only particles, and can we exist multiple times?

I just read an interesting article, heres the link if you want to read it. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/2013/12/02/why-life-does-not-really-exist/
I'm not saying its correct, but I think its an interesting way to look at how we define life. If you don't want to read it, essentially the author believes that "life" doesn't exist in the sense that we are all collections of atoms and particles, with no separation between us and everything else except the more advanced behavior we exhibit. A quote should give the idea, "there is no threshold at which a collection of atoms suddenly becomes alive, no categorical distinction between the living and inanimate, no Frankensteinian spark." Anyway, suppose that we are simply the collection of atoms, nothing more. One, would it make sense that if a brain was rebuilt to who you are now, you would "live again," except of course in this case it wouldn't be "live again," it would be, "become conscious again," and two, if you did not exist before your sperm, and after the sperm was created you were created, wouldn't it make sense that when you die, you no longer exist, and therefore COULD be "cycled" back into consciousness? I don't mean that spiritually, I mean it in the sense of how this universe works. It did create you, if "you" didn't exist before the sperm that became you came to be, and so couldn't it be possible to be "subjectively" created again? You will be another person, but subjectively, you will experience it