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But the flowing of souls extends the lifespan of the current Universe. Is that not a good thing?Again, Pharasma being 100% opposed to undead is not what makes them, or creating them, evil, or Evil.
They could be the epitome of Good and she would not treat them any differently.
She is the caretaker of the cycle of souls, undeath prevents the soul from flowing, and for Pharasma, the only thing that matters is that the souls must flow.
Wait... the flowing of souls extends the life span of the current universe, and thusly I would assume, Pharasma's existence too. She's a hypocrite. She's using souls in this cycle to extend existence, and thus her own personal existence... much like a necromancer might.
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Wait... the flowing of souls extends the life span of the current universe, and thusly I would assume, Pharasma's existence too. She's a hypocrite. She's using souls in this cycle to extend existence, and thus her own personal existence... much like a necromancer might.But the flowing of souls extends the lifespan of the current Universe. Is that not a good thing?Again, Pharasma being 100% opposed to undead is not what makes them, or creating them, evil, or Evil.
They could be the epitome of Good and she would not treat them any differently.
She is the caretaker of the cycle of souls, undeath prevents the soul from flowing, and for Pharasma, the only thing that matters is that the souls must flow.
You could argue that, but you could also argue that shortening it for everyone in existence is a pretty bad thing. You're trying to make an analogy for Pharasma with necromancy that really doesn't work, because while it happens to lengthen her time existing, it lengthens the time anyone at all gets to exists because that's simply how this universe works. Also, Pharasma could be killed. Who knows what consequences that would have, it would be crazy. But I think Pharasma would accept her death and not resort to necromancy, because she knows the consequences.
We also don't know what consequences it has for the next iteration of existence. We know a part of the current iteration of existence will be used as the key for the next existence. And that Pharasma knew from the moment it was created, that this existence had a flaw that would stop it from going on indefinitely. But she has prepared someone to create the next iteration and hopefully improved on the formula that was used to create this version.
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So if a necromancer's bloody sacrifices of lesser animals and rituals had a side effect of helping the local crops come in plentiful and robust, would you no loner consider what they did evil, again assuming this was done with void energy?
Furthermore, from her perspective, she is artificially extending her life by manipulating the flow of souls, this flies in the face of her stated concept of to everything a time to be born and a time to die.
(To be clear, this more of a devil's advocate thing I'm doing here, because I find this an interesting metaphysical and moral discussion, and presenting the arguments that I think Ethical necromancers would give for their activities)
If Pharasma is so justified in prolonging her own life, OUTSIDE the cycle of life and death, then why should we not be able to?
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So if a necromancer's bloody sacrifices of lesser animals and rituals had a side effect of helping the local crops come in plentiful and robust, would you no loner consider what they did evil, again assuming this was done with void energy?
Furthermore, from her perspective, she is artificially extending her life by manipulating the flow of souls, this flies in the face of her stated concept of to everything a time to be born and a time to die.
(To be clear, this more of a devil's advocate thing I'm doing here, because I find this an interesting metaphysical and moral discussion, and presenting the arguments that I think Ethical necromancers would give for their activities)
If Pharasma is so justified in prolonging her own life, OUTSIDE the cycle of life and death, then why should we not be able to?
Well, Pharasma is not extending only her own life. And she's not working outside the cycle of life and death either. The cycle of souls, which she is trying to keep going and is harmed by Necromancy, is what keeps this version of the universe from ending. Prophecy has broken, but prior to that it was "known" that when Pharasma judged the last soul besides heserlf, the watcher, the survivor, and Groetus would be there. Groetus will descend and consume everything remaining (including Pharasma), likely becoming the key to start the next instance of reality. The Watcher exists outside of reality. And the survivor is the chosen being that will use the key to start reality again. I do not believe Pharasma fears this. She has known it to be her destiny for all of existence.
But in any event, she's not working outside the cycle of souls, it's literally just how the cycle of souls work. And she's not doing the cycle of souls for herself, but so that everyone and everything can keep on existing. Even Undead will cease to be when this instance of the universe ends.
It should also be understood that Pharasma didn't intentionally create the cycle of souls as we understand it. But in the first moments of creation she knew how it functioned, and its flaws, and that it would eventually grind to a halt and this existence would end. It's actually very unclear how much control or influence Pharasma had on the creation of this version of existence, but it honestly seems like very little. It seems more likely that creator of the previous existence is the one who sets up the conditions to start the next existence.
To your first question, if blood sacrifices and rituals helped local crops (and didn't mess with the cycle of souls) I wouldn't personally consider it evil. You've simply described what many first nation and ancient peoples would do in the past. The use of Void energy doesn't really change this for me, although in the past when it was the Negative Energy plane which was aligned directly with Evil, including tags it would be pretty hard to say it wasn't Evil within the in universe setting.
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as you pointed out, Prophesy is broken, if it was every real in the first place.
Further you pointed out that the cycle of souls is a force beyond her that she is manipulating. and would eventually come to a stop to end the universe, so she artificially forces this to continue through the manipulation of the cycle of souls.
Also, I didn't say she was acting outside the cycle of souls, but outside the cycle of Life and Death, the gods can die. We've just had a rather vivid demonstration of that.
With Prophesy broken she is now just a witch manipulating souls to make sure a future she wants, and only that future comes to pass. Sounds like a necromancer to me.
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Pharasma isn't really manipulating the cycle of life and death, unless you consider "ensuring it functions as intended" to be manipulation...which is a take I guess.
To be honest, I've grown very tired of your devil's advocate and "in character" arguments because I'm looking at this objectively for what we know about the universe of Pathfinder.
The cycle of souls exists. When the last soul is judge, this version of reality ends. Necromancy removes souls from the cycle and hastens the end of reality.
If we assume that reality existing is a good thing, then anything which hastens the end of would be a bad thing. Personally, I view reality existing as a good thing, and I think most beings do, as that's where the exist and all the things they enjoy. You pretty much only get nihilist who look for the end of existence to argue otherwise.
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By manipulating the natural cycles of wood and decay, I maintain my house to artificially extend my life. That I actually against the mites tearing at the foundations is sign of my hypocrisy.
snarking
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People will argue that Pharasma is akin to a Necromancer and is evil/a hypocrite/vile and somehow not reckon Necromancers are the same for doing the same thing they're trying to argue Pharasma is doing but worse. A Necromancer is not trying to prolong the cosmos with their actions, they're vioalting souls to make corpse slaves to do their bidding and polluting their own souls to become undead horrors.
Why are you willing to give them a pass but demonize someone who is actively trying to make sure the slopped together system doesn't just collapse into a entropy-hastening free for all of soul-snatching, soul consuming and undeath profilerating chaos?
On a related note, no Pharasma did not lie about Prophecy being a thing, she may have had it in her portfolio but it was a real thing that existed beyond her and others interacted with. It wasn't her just making stuff up, unless one wants to argue that she did indeed make it all up and somehow lost the ability to just lie through her teeth after Aroden died?
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I would disagree, I think having existence is inherently better than having no existence.Far from being an axiom, this is the only serious question in the whole field of philosophy.
I wouldn't say it's the only serious questions, but it is the first question one must answer when critically questioning philosophical foundations. From this question, all other questions come into existence and become meaningful (because if nothing exist, there can be no other questions or meaning).
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It should also be understood that Pharasma didn't intentionally create the cycle of souls as we understand it. But in the first moments of creation she knew how it functioned, and its flaws, and that it would eventually grind to a halt and this existence would end.
I think it is a bit more complicated than this, because the current cycle of souls is an improvement by the deities of what they first wrought in the First World.
So, it seems Pharasma was one of the designers of the current version of the cycle as well as its caretaker.
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3 hours ago and not in this thread but very relevant IMO:
As for the notion of "stealing a soul from Pharasma," that's not how it works. Remember, Pharasma is also the goddess of birth and fate. She knows if it's a soul's fate to be resurrected (aka reborn) into life once or a thousand times or more or anywhere in between, and doesn't intervene at all, regardless of who's doing the resurrecting, and it doesn't bother her. She's beyond time, and she knows that eventually all things die. She's patient, but also merciful and doesn't begrudge those who seek methods to extend life beyond death via things like resurrection or Sun Orchid Elixirs or fountains of youth. The main exception here is undeath, because that method is actively destructive to the cycle of life and death in that it corrupts a soul and takes it OUT of the cycle, potentially forever, but even temporarily it's damaging. But when a soul of someone who created a lot of undead (or the soul of an undead creature themselves) finally moves on to the Boneyard, she doesn't hold grudges and lets those souls move on to the afterlife after judgment or be resurrected.
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3 hours ago and not in this thread but very relevant IMO:
As for the notion of "stealing a soul from Pharasma," that's not how it works. Remember, Pharasma is also the goddess of birth and fate. She knows if it's a soul's fate to be resurrected (aka reborn) into life once or a thousand times or more or anywhere in between, and doesn't intervene at all, regardless of who's doing the resurrecting, and it doesn't bother her. She's beyond time, and she knows that eventually all things die. She's patient, but also merciful and doesn't begrudge those who seek methods to extend life beyond death via things like resurrection or Sun Orchid Elixirs or fountains of youth. The main exception here is undeath, because that method is actively destructive to the cycle of life and death in that it corrupts a soul and takes it OUT of the cycle, potentially forever, but even temporarily it's damaging. But when a soul of someone who created a lot of undead (or the soul of an undead creature themselves) finally moves on to the Boneyard, she doesn't hold grudges and lets those souls move on to the afterlife after judgment or be resurrected.
Interesting, I had always assumed that "Pharasma knows when people will die so resurrection and artificial life-extension are beneath her notice" would necessarily also apply to undeath--"Pharasma knows when a ghoul will die, even though it's potentially perma-immortal" but this more or less suggests that (from a top-down, developer perspective) the existence of undead doesn't only damage the cosmos by keeping souls in the mortal Universe longer than they were supposed to.
Still fascinated to know how (and whether) this will be squared re: Necromancers potentially being a heroic PC option, soon! It would not surprise me at all if thralls occupied the same "too temporary to matter psuedo-undead" space as the Animate Dead spell, but I half wonder if it might not just be that when you burn fossil fuels animate the dead, there's no scenario where you're not causing some small harm to the environment on the long run and you'll have to live with that, if you ever learn about it, and maybe you'll have to try to perform your art as eco-friendly as possible by offsetting your void emissions.
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Offsetting your necromancy is easy! Just kill two or three rival necromancers.
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Offsetting your necromancy is easy! Just kill two or three rival necromancers.Plot Hook: Powerful good necromancer needs to kill more evil necromancers for his offset this year. He's willing to pay for your Credits.
He also has a lot of evil apprentices that the good necromancer will kill in due time.
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Offsetting your necromancy is easy! Just kill two or three rival necromancers.
If you turn a necromancer into your undead thrall, the number of necromancers stay the same. As they say.
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But yeah, Pharasma's approach is a bit like preventing climate change and global warming, Necromancers are effectively burning fossil fuels in a funky cosmic way.
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But yeah, Pharasma's approach is a bit like preventing climate change and global warming, Necromancers are effectively burning fossil fuels in a funky cosmic way.
I think this is a pretty good analogy. With a key difference being that (aside from Geb) society isn't reliant on necromancy to keep society running/functioning.
Like, in the modern US its incredibly impractical even if you wanted to, to avoid the direct and indirect use of fossil fuels without significant burden.
To the average person on Golarion, there's basically 0 burden or societal shift needed to avoid necromancy.
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But yeah, Pharasma's approach is a bit like preventing climate change and global warming, Necromancers are effectively burning fossil fuels in a funky cosmic way.I think this is a pretty good analogy. With a key difference being that (aside from Geb) society isn't reliant on necromancy to keep society running/functioning.
Of course, the lack of a necro-industrial complex in Golarion is to remind us that it's a work of fiction where heroic adventurers and gods both take a meaningful stance against the proliferation of exploitative necromantic practices becoming the norm and catapulting society toward a high equilibrium state based on post-corporeal suffering =P
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Of course, the lack of a necro-industrial complex in Golarion is to remind us that it's a work of fiction where heroic adventurers and gods both take a meaningful stance against the proliferation of exploitative necromantic practices becoming the norm and catapulting society toward a high equilibrium state based on post-corporeal suffering =PBut yeah, Pharasma's approach is a bit like preventing climate change and global warming, Necromancers are effectively burning fossil fuels in a funky cosmic way.I think this is a pretty good analogy. With a key difference being that (aside from Geb) society isn't reliant on necromancy to keep society running/functioning.
This post gives me the big sad because it's too real.
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But yeah, Pharasma's approach is a bit like preventing climate change and global warming, Necromancers are effectively burning fossil fuels in a funky cosmic way.
OK, but I would classify this as 'good.' Why is fighting climate change neutral?
I think we've exhausted the topic.
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But yeah, Pharasma's approach is a bit like preventing climate change and global warming, Necromancers are effectively burning fossil fuels in a funky cosmic way.OK, but I would classify this as 'good.' Why is fighting climate change neutral?
I think we've exhausted the topic.
If I understand your question correctly, it's because outside of undead and cycle of souls Pharasma doesn't care about good or evil. She is not supporting either (outside of the whole undead thing).
So while I agree ensuring the cycle of souls continues and the universe continues are good actions, there is no dedication to good outside of that.
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But yeah, Pharasma's approach is a bit like preventing climate change and global warming, Necromancers are effectively burning fossil fuels in a funky cosmic way.OK, but I would classify this as 'good.' Why is fighting climate change neutral?
I think we've exhausted the topic.
Because Pharasma has zero problem with the authoritarian regimes winning. Nor with the democracies winning for that matter.
It is all less important to her than fighting climate change.
Hence Neutral and does not allow Unholy nor Holy because that struggle is just an unneeded distraction from the true duty.
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I think its also worth saying that fighting climate change in this context is pretty clearly a Good action endorsed by many holy deities (and opposed by several unholy ones), but Pharasma is not herself. Fighting climate change does not automatically make her Good, nor does that make fighting climate change Not Good.
Although, push the pursuit of making any metric go up/down singlemindedly enough and it can become an amoral or immoral action...
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I think a concept within Pathfinder is that worship can grant a being divine power, but worship isn't required to maintain divine power. And also the amount of worshippers doesn't translate to amount of divine power.
The bringing up of Undeath as an allegory for fossil fuels and the eroding of our world reminds me of an old 2017 thread I stumbled on. I am pretty sure I saw some of the names here in that thread so maybe some of you remember the thread that asked "Is using the drift evil".
It interests me now what I perceive to be an inconsistency. Word of God (Paizo) and the majority of the community took the side of using Drift is not evil despite it being an allegory for using fossil fuels and the slow destruction of our setting. The big difference is we know how Drift travel destroys the multiverse and that Pharasma is not against Drift travel. We do not know how Undead destroys the multiverse, only that it is confirmed by Word of God (company) and Pharasma is against it.
There is an inconsistency in the allegory as we have two fossil fuel allegories but one is treated a lot worse than the other. I am sure there will be very well thought out reasons given how undeath is objectively worse than Drift travel but in the most macro of scales, the lifetime of the setting, the distinction is trivial. Both lead to the destruction of the multiverse. One by the expanding maelstrom, the other by unknown means.
I submit that if there can be ethical drift travel there must be a way to ethically raise monsters. While more niche than space travel, the control of monsters to fight other monsters and preserving life is a very real triumph. IRL and I am willing to gamble on Golarion there are more beings that have died than are currently alive. What remains after death is a resource which can be used instead of manpower.
Maybe this means intelligent undead aren't ethical and conjuring souls is icky too, but skeletons and zombies puppetted by magic and put to work to defend the living is hardly evil and if Pharasma has a problem with that I am going to point at Drift travel and tell her to stop being a hypocrite.
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There is an inconsistency in the allegory as we have two fossil fuel allegories but one is treated a lot worse than the other. I am sure there will be very well thought out reasons given how undeath is objectively worse than Drift travel but in the most macro of scales, the lifetime of the setting, the distinction is trivial. Both lead to the destruction of the multiverse. One by the expanding maelstrom, the other by unknown means.
There's actually a big difference.
The cycle of souls prevents the entire multiverse from collapsing and the whole of the multiverse ceasing to exists. Undeath removes souls from the cycle and erodes and undermines all existence. That's why Pharasma cares, because she wants existence to continue.
The drift on the other hand, won't cause all of reality to collapse. Simply change how it exists, what it looks like. Pharasma doesn't care so much about this because she tries to remain neutral about things, with a special concern about reality as a whole not collapsing.
Now personally, I consider undeath and use of the drift evil. But much in the same way I can't stop using my car or fossil fuels (as the source that provides electricity for my home) it's a little evil on the part of the majority of people (although arguably a big evil for the people in power who could changes things to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels).
Fossil fuels are bad because they will destroy our planet.
Imaginarium X is worse because it will destroy the universe.
Drift travel is bad because it will cause damage to planes while increasing the maelstrom.
Undeath is worse because it will hasten the destruction of all the planes.
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I think a concept within Pathfinder is that worship can grant a being divine power, but worship isn't required to maintain divine power. And also the amount of worshippers doesn't translate to amount of divine power.That's definitely how it seems to work for the goblin gods, at least. Lamashtu and the Bargast Hero-Gods aren't happy about it, either.
Indeed, if more worshippers meant more power, then gods with relatively few devout worshippers, like Nethys, would be practically powerless compared to Lamashtu, who has large percentages of multiple races devoted to her (goblins, gnolls, minotaurs) as well as probably almost as many human followers as Nethys!
It would also introduce such wonkiness that I wouldn't love as 'the sooner your followers DIE, the sooner you harvest their power, and the less likely they are to embrace the following of one of the 29,943 other gods competing for their souls in the mortal world,' which would encourage A) kill 'em young, by encouraging wars and crusades, if nothing else, and B) gods with shorter lived followers (like goblins) being vastly more powerful than gods with long lived or deathless followers (like gods of elves, gods of androids, or gods with a lot of vampire / lich / ghoul followers).
Oh, and extra wonky bit. It would also encourage *not* killing followers of a hated deity because doing so empowers them. Very real motivation for using spells like Temporal Stasis or Imprisonment, or alternate (cheaper) techniques like Flesh to Stone or Baleful Polymorph (to some really long lived and simple creature, like a box tortoise), to take the souls of their followers that you defeat and deny them to the god they serve. If every goblin you kill just makes Lamashtu .000001% stronger than Sarenrae, suddenly her 'redeem 'em, don't kill 'em!' stance feel less merciful and more mercenary...
Golarion's gods are already a bit of a hodgepodge. You got 'gods that always were' (Pharasma), gods that clawed their way to godhood (Irori, Nethys, Urgathoa), gods that are top-tier outsiders (Lamashtu, Asmodeus), gods that became gods because of a big space rock in Absalom (Iomedae, Cayden, Norgorber) and gods who got rich the old fashioned way, by inheriting it (Shelyn, Dou-Bral/Zon-Kuthon, possibly Kurgess?).
I love that they have multiple origin points, and aren't all one big (incestuous) family, like the Greek or Norse or Egyptian pantheons can sometimes appear.
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. What remains after death is a resource which can be used instead of manpower.
Maybe this means intelligent undead aren't ethical and conjuring souls is icky too, but skeletons and zombies puppetted by magic and put to work to defend the living is hardly evil and if Pharasma has a problem with that I am going to point at Drift travel and tell her to stop being a hypocrite.
That would be animating bones. And that is not evil.
However, mindless undead animated by the void energy are not just animated bones. They have an instinct to kill the living. Creating permanent undead who can attack people is thus evil. Because the blood they shed when (not if) they escape control and attack people will be on their creator's hands.
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. What remains after death is a resource which can be used instead of manpower.
Maybe this means intelligent undead aren't ethical and conjuring souls is icky too, but skeletons and zombies puppetted by magic and put to work to defend the living is hardly evil and if Pharasma has a problem with that I am going to point at Drift travel and tell her to stop being a hypocrite.That would be animating bones. And that is not evil.
However, mindless undead animated by the void energy are not just animated bones. They have an instinct to kill the living. Creating permanent undead who can attack people is thus evil. Because the blood they shed when (not if) they escape control and attack people will be on their creator's hands.
Great point, it is possible to animate bones and even a body into something that it a gruesome construct, but a construct and not undead. Undead are fueled by void energy and affect the soul of the mortal from which the undead was made.
It's not just "animating bones". Here is an example of animated bones. Pharasma doesn't have a problem with that sort of thing.
Also this
I repeat my point. Animated the dead bones and flesh of others to use against other monsters. I don't mean constructs. I do mean mindless undead. It is a tool like any other when you look at it as a tool. An archer who doesn't practice care can misaim and hit an ally. A fighter loses grip of their weapon and if stabs an innocent. A wizard doesn't consider their fireball is to close to a thatched roof and it starts a massive fire in a village.
These are not even acts. These are negligence.
Hello, Darkness, this old thread...
I'm not sure I can find much point in (yet again) speculating whether all undead creation is always completely evil while the "Impossible" book remains unpublished and out of our hands.
To repeat a point of my own, necromancy isn't real. We can invent any number of reasons to say it is at worst, dangerous but morally neutral (as the 'tool' example above) or we can create just as many for why it's always an inherently evil act with or without the created party ever causing harm to an innocent. The forthcoming Necromancer may address these questions with the introduction of a new undead-centric class, or it may not, but until it does or doesn't, we're debating around a substantial unknown that will doubtless influence many of the arguments we could make
What we do know is that creating permanent undead through the Create Undead ritual is an unholy act, and that creating a temporary facsimile of an undead from void energy a la the Summon Undead spell is not. We know the majority of undead are tagged as unholy regardless whether they have minds to choose evil or simply obey destructive impulses out of habit.
Clearly, there must be some degree of nuance, whether or not Pharasma accepts practices that are not technically unholy. Also irrespective of whether any individual necromancer can convince themselves that it's not really that evil to enslave the souls of the dead for a good cause. The justifications have shifted over the years, so the unpublished lore reasons may not all agree or even be relevant anymore. (For example, a couple pages back I was talking about the idea that mindless undead are partly born of fragments torn off souls--does anyone know if that ever made it into print or has shown up anywhere in the last five years?)
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I just like this as a thought exercise and a little socializing.
Whatever Paizo decides for Impossible is fine, even if it isn't what I am advocating here. I don't mind I am disagreed with here because I am enjoying reading thoughtful posts and considering counter arguments. I don't even expect to change minds.
I am just having fun.
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Hello, Darkness, this old thread...
I'm not sure I can find much point in (yet again) speculating whether all undead creation is always completely evil while the "Impossible" book remains unpublished and out of our hands.
To repeat a point of my own, necromancy isn't real. We can invent any number of reasons to say it is at worst, dangerous but morally neutral (as the 'tool' example above) or we can create just as many for why it's always an inherently evil act with or without the created party ever causing harm to an innocent. The forthcoming Necromancer may address these questions with the introduction of a new undead-centric class, or it may not, but until it does or doesn't, we're debating around a substantial unknown that will doubtless influence many of the arguments we could make
What we do know is that creating permanent undead through the Create Undead ritual is an unholy act, and that creating a temporary facsimile of an undead from void energy a la the Summon Undead spell is not. We know the majority of undead are tagged as unholy regardless whether they have minds to choose evil or simply obey destructive impulses out of habit.
Clearly, there must be some degree of nuance, whether or not Pharasma accepts practices that are not technically unholy. Also irrespective of whether any individual necromancer can convince themselves that it's not really that evil to enslave the souls of the dead for a good cause. The justifications have shifted over the years, so the unpublished lore reasons may not all agree or even be relevant anymore. (For example, a couple pages back I was talking about the idea that mindless undead are partly born of fragments torn off souls--does anyone know if that ever made it into print or has shown up anywhere in the last five years?)
1. Pharasma does not care about Holy or Unholy.
2. The point about parts of souls in mindless undead was in a post from James Jacobs quite some time ago. He mentioned it was causing some pain, though minor, to the incomplete soul.
There was even a poster imagining a righteous necromancer creating mindless undead from the corpses of bad people, just to add some pain to their afterlife.
I just like this as a thought exercise and a little socializing.
Whatever Paizo decides for Impossible is fine, even if it isn't what I am advocating here. I don't mind I am disagreed with here because I am enjoying reading thoughtful posts and considering counter arguments. I don't even expect to change minds.
I am just having fun.
No, yeah, that's absolutely fair. Tone is challenging to convey in online text, but I don't mean to come in here just to shut down entertaining hypotheticals and interesting discussion. Certainly given the number of posts I've put into this thread, it's clearly a topic that I find interesting.
For what it's worth, I do kind of agree with you. Speaking of what's canonically true about Golarion, it doesn't make sense to me to say that creating undead is never an evil act. Even if the specifics are unclear, it is clear that necromancy is often seen as a cruel and dark magic because of the real harm it causes, not just stigma and stereotype. BUT when speaking hypothetically about undead in general, to me there's no strong reason why necromancy must be inherently evil.
The strongest objection I would have against a setting where necromancy was, at worst, a misunderstood and maligned art, is that I would expect the worldbuilder to extend the most logical conclusions. This can be a hard sell for a stock/recognisably medievalish fantasy setting because any world that even loosely accepts the creation of mindless undead should find that untiring labour could very nearly obviate the peasant as a whole--and if history has anything to say, it's that the rich and powerful would happily make such a trade if they could get away with it.
From a meta reason, it's advantageous to come up with strong reasons why necromancy is largely shunned if only because it's power to change the landscape of the setting (and if necromancers are going to be doing cool things in a setting, they're often going to have that kind of power). Basically, the entire setting becomes Geb--which can be a very interesting world! But not for the writer who just wants to include some animate skeleton fodder in their medieval fantasy world.
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1. Pharasma does not care about Holy or Unholy.
2. The point about parts of souls in mindless undead was in a post from James Jacobs quite some time ago. He mentioned it was causing some pain, though minor, to the incomplete soul.
Yes, of course. I neglected to clarify the distinction in my haste, but I didn't mean to imply Pharasma would care more about Create Undead than Summon Undead because one was unholy, but rather she might have less ire toward spells and effects like Summon Undead because they are too temporary to be worth her censure. Not to say that I would expect this to matter in the case of her clerics casting such spells, but it's possible that she sees some distinction between a village witch who creates mock-up undead out of void, which collapse again before a minute is up, and the whispering cultists who perform the ritual to animate a corpse into a self-sustaining zombie.
And indeed I am familiar with the Ask JJ threads (on Paizo and on Reddit) from about 11 years ago describing mindless undead as trapping a soul fragment within the body. I would be very much interested to see if there's any sign of this lore remaining true after all this time, albeit seemingly unpublished even now. It would certainly track with other soul-trapping/enslaving magics being unholy, and could even provide a reason why temporary undead spells don't have the tag and might not annoy Pharasma as much... maybe.
I repeat my point. Animated the dead bones and flesh of others to use against other monsters. I don't mean constructs. I do mean mindless undead. It is a tool like any other when you look at it as a tool. An archer who doesn't practice care can misaim and hit an ally. A fighter loses grip of their weapon and if stabs an innocent. A wizard doesn't consider their fireball is to close to a thatched roof and it starts a massive fire in a village.
These are not even acts. These are negligence.
I might agree with you, if we didn't know that the creation of Undead destabilizes the cycle of souls which is what keeps the multiverse from collapsing in on itself.
If you ignore that bit of the setting, then yes you can make a stronger argument that it's morally neutral. Aside from ya know, how 99% of canonical examples of undead and people who create undead were evil/unholy.
I get it, you don't like the setting stuffs necromancy into a box with a label like evil. But I DO like it.