(1) Were most of the souls of people now living with only zero, one or two prior lives?
Who is to count the lives if your soul does not belong to one mind or one body. If you had lived many many lives relearning most of what you already knew would the new ideas or the old ideas be the freshest on your mind. If your best in life were to become the worst in another and in a third it gave you a chance to teach your gift, would you know when the opportunity rises? If you give a gift that shows true understanding of your talent, does part of your soul carry forth with it. I believe it does for oh so many reasons.
(2) I think the global population in 1900 (or some year like that) was less than half what it is today. Were there now incarnated souls recently made for these new bodies of the current population, Or have their souls been in "cold storage" waiting for a new baby?
Well most of their composition is seeping deeper and deeper into the ground, or if their ashes have been burned further and further around the Earth. The only given exchange of a soul the likes of which you are looking for is when the first spark of live enters a mothers womb. Which it is less of an exchange and more of a duplication, but who is to say that the food your mother eats durring this time has not already had many lives of its own. Why do you think some people turn into vegtables later in their lives? You are what your mother ate.
(3) What happens to souls when the world's population actually decreases as it did during the black plague? Are they stuck / stored somewhere without bodies to occupy?
I suppose you would have a poor market for food in those years, you can't drag diseased bodies over your crops and your land to make for better nutrition. If the King Must Die he might as well prepare them a meal or last supper.
(4) How long, on average, before a recently dead person's soul gets into a new baby's body?
However long it takes a person to fully decay, become a carrot and be fed to a baby... Duh..
(5) If the recently dead person has led a "good life" by some religion's standards is his soul going into a new born baby who is predestined to be at least as "good" and will certainly prosper?
People define their life by what good they can do today not what good they may or may not have done in the past. If I wish to believe that durring the night in my dreams I revisit a past life, you could say I was reborn every morning. We would not know the difference if in the end of our days we were to revisit our dreams to hear the story within this story untold. There are no gaurauntees of prosperity, nor do I think prosperity has anything to do with religious standards.
(6) When there is a "shortage of new babies," does the soul go into a dog etc. until a new born baby is available?
If your baby is eaten by the dog, Yes the dog won what soul connection is taken from all the people who hear of the tragedy.
(7) Can a new baby be born without a soul?
They aren't born with a definitive moist ripe personality, though technically this is not a soul there are further ways of encouraging soulless actions. People are bred and learn what the society they are born into designates. If they are gifted, may they give their gift into the people of the current age. Your soul is a river "current" of thoughts brought by all great minds of the past through recorded history.
