Opinions please...

I'm world building and I need opinions about a morality of a subject from other views... this subject is a matter that deals with religious matters, but this is not a religious topic, so please don't conflate the two. This has nothing to do with any doctrine of any religion in the real world...

So, the idea is thus...

Everything degenerates, including souls.
A Soul or soul power is generated from physical bodies. The longer a soul is in the a body the stronger it can get.
A powerful enough soul can generate a physical body via matter manipulation.

Basically this is an explanation of why, if souls can manipulate matter why don't they create their own bodies and if the soul is more powerful in the pure spiritual form why don't they just stay dead... ie what's important about life in a world where the afterlife is known to be true.

So here's the thing I need opinions on...
What is the morality stance on reincarnation?

If a soul does not reincarnate it will eventually decay and vanish which means it needs to get into a new body.

But bodies without souls, create their own...

This means that someone who reincarnates could be seen as preventing the creation of and thus killing a new soul.

So is reincarnating in this system considered immoral or not? And what are your arguments for or against?

So there are a limited number of bodies? Because if a soul can generate a body, that's a souled body. If a body can generate a soul, that's a souled body. I don't see the issue in that instance. On the other hand, if by "reincarnate" you mean a form of possession, then it's a moral gray area if they aren't displacing an existing "baby soul." For the story's sake, I'd have powerful souls displacing -- essentially killing -- baby souls.

Such a set-up would tend to create great evil, because a single powerful soul who was megalomaniacal would therefore kill people young so their souls didn't become equally powerful. You get a Hitler, Napoleon, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-Il, Idi Amin or etc., and you get massive death. All he has to do is promise a few loyal lieutenants they'll get to become very powerful, too, and they can then start influencing others. Pretty soon you have institutionalized genocide.

How about if the soul of an infant is one who has lost enough power as to be 'new'?

In this instance it seems that it's an act of desperation, or at the least, self preservation. A soul would expend the energy it would need to perpetuate and bring itself back to 'full strength' (i.e. create a physical form in which it can grow, or regain, power) if it were waning. A waning soul would need to 'rebuild' itself. Re-Learn, like an infant would re-learn how to be an enlightened self-aware being?

Those that would aquire enough 'energy' in life would expend their energy to 'move on' to the next level of life, one would presume. Of course, there would be exceptions or 'near misses' like the Buddhist Bodhisattva or in more western terms, a saint or angellic being perhaps?

If you're looking into concepts of population growth like most truisms in a world society, that energy has to go somewhere. As that energy 'degenerates' it must go somewhere. The 'leavings' of the soul's energy that is strong enough to continue, but not enough to 'move to the next phase' become the buds of new souls born to the world. Again, these would be infantile and unknowing and would have to learn... thus the process continues and the availability for the population of the world actually increases over time.

This line of thinking what you were meaning?

I like the idea of soul "leavings" become the new souls. I'm not really concerned with conservation of energy with this ^.^

Here's the thing... a god is a soul and a body... and even if the body is destroyed the soul can reform the body for a god.... Same with some other creatures in this universe. Not all souls can do this and thus they must either steal soul power from others, reincarnate due to degradation, or simply poof out of existence.

So unless a person steals soul power or somehow gains soul power through other means, they'd have to eventually reincarnate or vanish. Obviously the growth in other ways can be good or bad and that can be more easily have an individual grey area...

Reincarnation however would be more like a tribal/clan/culture thing that of that culture would take part in. Is having a reincarnated soul for a child viewed as an honor, or is it seen as that soul "killed" the possible child in greed for life? Then there are views on reincarnating of evil people and how cultures would react to them... kill the child? view them as another chance like in buddhism?

I think this really depends on how the cultures have developed. Both the living and the soul one. Most moral values and views we have today roots way back.

Go back to the beginning where there were only five or six people and what would they think about it, and extrapolate it a few thousand years.

It would also depend on how different a living being with an old soul is from a new one. Can living people tell? Is it a benefit in any way? Or does it follow the convention that while alive they have no idea about their soul's status?

A culture that faced a huge growth explosion through the last few centuries might have a preference for new souls, since they are all in essence new souls. Whereas those that grew slowly and steady might lean towards self-preservation and have less issues with reincarnation.

I think it's hard to claim that Reincarnation is immoral in this setup. It's akin to claiming that condoms are immoral because they prevent the creation of new life. Yes, there actually are a few people condemning condoms in the real world, but in the main case it's because of having sex for pleasure rather than procreation being considered immoral. It's impossible to judge things that haven't happened yet, or their prevention on moral grounds because no-one can imagine the consequences in their entirety. I'm sure no-one would have minded if Hitler's parents had used condoms, but that's hindsight.

The only thing that is known is that the soul not reincarnating will truly vanish from this world. In that sense, I'd imagine that souls considered valuable would actually be encouraged to reincarnate rather than discouraged. Who wouldn't like Beethoven or Van Gogh or Jimi Hendrix to come back in some form?

My answer before reading everyone else's:

It is not immoral.

1) If this is part of the natural cycle of your world, then it is simply following what nature intended.

2) They are not killing a soul by preventing its' creation. You can't kill what doesn't exist yet.

3) Assuming that there is population growth, there will be more bodies than souls trying to reincarnate. Even if you suppose that reincarnating is "killing" another soul (perhaps because that particular soul is destined to be created/ born, with population growth, that other soul will still, in time, have the opportunity to be born.

If this is all part of the natural cycle of your world, then no it isn't immoral, it's natural selection. More amoral- no right or wrong.

While I don't view it as immoral or moral... the reason I asked about this is to get moral views that I might not of thought of for this in case I ever decide to cover that aspect...

I would think that various cultures (and individuals) in the world would have varying opinions on whether reincarnation was ethical.

My thought is that the real question is: Do you want to portray reincarnation as good or bad in your story?

If in order to reincarnate, a person has to 'eat' the energy that would have become, but has explicitly not yet become a soul, then that is, IMHO, still only eating energy. It would be like saying that preventing someone from having unprotected sex with a fertile female is killing a child.

Of course, once the energy becomes a soul, then consuming it would be cannibalism (for a human).

If a would-be reincarnator attempts to reincarnate in a souled body, are they prevented?