The religious need to prove God, not visa versa.

My seven final contentions are as follows:1. My opponent, in his opening resolution, made the claim that "the religious religious need to prove God" and that "they came up with the concept" and "should prove it."2. There was no context or indication whatsoever that the opponent was making a claim different from this one. It is clear that based on the definitions I have provided and explanation I have given that we can take his claim to mean that "the religious simply HAVE to prove the existence of a God." Even if there had been some ambiguity, and even if his intended meaning was different, clarification after the fact is not acceptable with regards to debate procedure.3. The burden of proof lay with my opponent, the instigator and the Pro side, to defend the extraordinary universal statement he originally put forth.4. In order to have successfully defended this position, my opponent would have had to give evidence that the necessity and obligation of the religious to prove God is a universal truth, either dictated by some higher power or part of natural law for example.5. Regardless of the opponent's actual intent, he did not originally make the claim that "the religious need to prove God, in order to be taken seriously." 6. This is a new claim and a red herring that is irrelevant to the actual debate.7. Since my opponent provided no evidence to support his claim that "the religious need to prove God" and actually admitted that he believes this claim is false, he has not argued his case convincingly. I am the victor.Concluding StatementTo begin my concluding statement, I will quote a few passages from the "DDO Tutorial" thread in order to explain to my opponent why he is in the wrong [1]:"While writing a debate resolution might seem simple at first, it is very important that the resolution is worded properly. A poorly worded or vague debate resolution can be exploited by an opponent.A poorly worded debate resolution is open to semantic. Semantics occurs if one uses a word that has multiple meanings, and the opponent twists the meaning around so that the definition favors him or her. An opponent might also take a figure of speech, and argue against the literal meaning.""So in other words, don't try to get an easy win by debating an easily defendable topic, since it will come back to bite you.To avoid an opponent using semantics on you, it is important to define your terms before the debate.""Your opening argument should give enough context to define what the words in the resolution mean. That context might include a whole opening argument, a description of the general area of debate, or specific definitions . . . However, if the meaning is not clear from context then semantic arguments are valid."It could be said that either (or both) I have utilized semantics or my opponent has (if he purposely omitted the clause "in order to be taken seriously" to confuse the opponent and then change later). Either way, I am in the right. I will give my opponent the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was being intentionally deceptive, but in this case, my semantic argument is valid because the opponent's case was poorly worded and lacked context.RebuttalThe first paragraph of my opponent's 4th Round statement is clearly false for reasons I have already given numerous times. In regards to his original claim he said, "That's not what I meant anyway." To this I respond: it matters not what you meant, only what you said. I had no way of knowing what he meant apart from the context he provided, which supports my interpretation of his position. He also argued the following: "But what I meant or didn't mean in the first paragraph of my argument, doesn't really matter. This is because I clarified in my second paragraph! So once you've read that paragraph, you can put the first one into context!"His Round 2 statement is irrelevant. I quote the DDO Tutorial thread again: "Your opening argument should give enough context to define what the words in the resolution mean." I had already accepted the debate, and he had already stated his position. In this situation, a change in position is not acceptable.Once again, he simply asserts that he made a different claim, adding words that I take I was supposed to guess were his actual meaning. This assertion is clearly unwarranted. He may not have waited until after I posted an argument to change his position, but he did wait until after I had accepted. I would not have accepted this debate if his claim was that "the religious must provide evidence for God in order to be taken seriously in the scientific community." My opponent did in fact move his goalposts. In Round 1, I was presented with an argument I felt I could competently argue against. In Round 2 I was presented with a new argument that is, in my opinion, much harder to argue against. Also, I have not complained at all. I have simply pointed out that he has not offered any evidence for the original claim, and I have displayed why the burden of proof is on him to do so.He states, "The first and second arguments do not contradict one another, as context was given (granted it should have been in the first paragraph/opening statement, but I thought it was implied) in the second . . . there is some physical force obligating the religious to prove God. Which I explained there was not."Though I do not agree with his first statement, he has agreed with me that he should have provided context in his initial statement with regards to proper debate procedure. He then denies the validity of his initial claim, as defined and interpreted by me in my initial argument. Need I even argue any further? I have not shifted the goal posts. This is an unwarranted assertion. My argument and position remains the same as it was when I accepted the debate.To quote the DDO Tutorial thread again: "Unless explicitly stated, CON does not have to prove that the resolution is false, just that there is not enough evidence to prove that the resolution is true." [1] Furthermore, I would argue that I do not need to provide any further evidence for my position because my opponent has agreed with me in regards to his initial claim that "the religious need to prove God."His response to my point about being called "they" is laughingly absurd. This is not a team debate. Also, the opponent could have looked at my profile to see that I am a he or simply referred to me as he/she, but he continued to call me they. I'm not quite sure what he meant about talking to the audience. I was not suggesting that he call me "you" if that's what he meant.Note that my opponent claims I took his statements out of context but never explains how. This is just another unwarranted assertion. His reason for making the debate is irrelevant to the claim he actually made in the debate. "I have actually just . . . 'This debate is . . . prove one.'" My opponent has seemingly just admitted that his previous arguments about providing implied context in his opening claim are untrue because it seems he did not actually read back over his Round 1 argument until now. It's a bit late. Maybe he meant something else, but that is what it seemed like he meant to me. As for what my opponent calls the "physical obligation element," I did indeed interpret his "should try" statement to mean this in my Round 1 argument, provided his lack of context. While I did not explicitly define "should," I mentioned in great detail what "should try" is taken to mean in this debate. Note that my opponent did not say that "the religious should try to prove God in order to be taken seriously." Should is characterized by obligation just as need is. As the opponent did not define should in his opening argument, my interpretation stands. In conclusion, I may not have argued my points perfectly, but my opponent has admitted defeat by denying the validity of his original claim.Exactly 8000 [1] http://debate.org... ; DDO Tutorial; RoyLatham and darkkermit