Reincarnation is real

Thanks Pro for the debate. 1. Burden Pro has the burden of proof to show that: a. the soul, a neither material nor contingent on the material thing, exists b. this immaterial thing is a principle embodied in human beings c. this principle can jump from human body to human body I reject the resolution that reincarnation is real, because nothing "neither material nor contingent on the material" has been demonstrated to exist; the soul has not been shown to exist. 2. Claims of Reincarnation Pro did not allow for this round to have rebuttals, so I will not directly address Pro's sources until next round, but claims of reincarnation are bogus. There has never been a double-blind, peer-reviewed reincarnation study published in a SCHOLARLY journal ever, and the reason is because reincarnation testing is being done by invested observers; the studies are never double blind, and the proctors/observers play a large influential role in the results gathered from people. Also, many of the reincarnation claims have someone who claims that they remember a past life, and that they can recall names that of people living then that they couldn't have known naturally. The problem is, in these cases, the "reincarnated" people will say a name of someone who knew the person whose soul is inside of them, like Max, and upon an observer investigating the claim, someone who knew the deceased was found to be named Mark, and because both names begin with M and have one syllable, the observer counts this as a correct match. The same thing goes for physical deformities found on children. Observers in reincarnation studies will see a deformed limb as a knife wound from a previous life, rather than a birth defect related to genetics or pathogens. This speaks to the lack of double blindedness in these studies, and it allows observers to fill in the gaps that don't have a link, but seem linked by some arbitrary association. 3. Material and Contingent on Material Something is material if it is made of matter. There are constructs like love/happiness/thoughts/ideas/feelings which themselves are not made of matter however, are contingent on matter. Love requires neurotransmitters and a brain, and neurotransmitters and brains are made of matter. Thoughts aren't made of matter, but blood, the brain, and neurons are made of matter, and there are no thoughts without this matter; thoughts are contingent on matter. Again, I cannot address Pro's arguments directly given the rules of the debate, but from what I understand about the "soul" is that it is in fact contingent on matter; humans must exist for a soul to exist. This to me effectively negates the resolution, because if the soul is contingent on matter, then it is not spiritual per the definitions of this debate. If the soul is not spiritual, then it cannot be "the spiritual principle embodied in human beings." To reiterate, Pro has to prove that something, the soul, is truly spiritual. Remember, it can't be contingent on the material, so something like the mind, which is contingent on the brain therefore contingent on the material, wouldn't be considered immaterial. Pro has to demonstrate that the soul is not contingent on the material to effectively meet his 3 part burden. Next round, I'm allowed to divulge the true crux of my argument as I am allowed to rebuttal, negating Pro. I plan to address Ian Stevenson's musings, xenoglossy, and the misguided, new-age-deism-energy-crap derived idea of substance dualism; come on, it ignores things that are contingent on matter, like all of those constructs I mentioned. On to Pro...