I have to say I strongly prefer the perspective Antarananda presents. The entire post you've constructed, Radical, is difficult to follow: the questions you ask don't appear to come from any particular context, and there are oodles of assumptions built into every question that I can't see from where you're drawing them.
For instance, your first question presumes that souls are created things. This is why your answer is so wishy-washy; you're forced to struggle with the context of creation, rather than actually consider the question itself.
Your second question broaches the assumed question of whether or not souls exist in animals, in plants, in living organisms. It does not even begin to wonder what life actually is. People spend so much time obsessed with death that they don't actually have any idea what life is, except the not-death. I've never been able to stomach this; death is the not-life, not the other way around.
I could go on. I would recommend that you start with a simpler, more fundamental question, answer it, and then tackle the next stage.
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