Any definition that conflates Atheism with Agnosticism is not Atheism by any sense.

The resolution has been negated, because I have clearly demonstrated that there is a definition which conflates Atheism and Agnosticism in a way that it’s still Atheism in some sense. A simple analogy is conflating dark and blue, which does not change the meaning of blue but simply qualifies it by specifying the shade of blue. In the same sense, Agnostic is a qualifier for Atheist, it allows us to express “a shade” of Atheism (and also Theism). As a matter of fact, I have shown that the term Agnostic can be applied in multiple other contexts, not just in a religious one. It is abundantly clear that the resolution is negated, so vote Con! Knowledge and Belief The tripartite theory of knowledge defines knowledge as justified true belief [1], but I have shown that the Gittier cases do in fact disprove the tripartite theory of knowledge [2]. After revisiting my opponent’s argument, I submit that the above facts, while true, are somewhat irrelevant. However, a closer look at Pro’s statements raises some serious alarms! Pro has stated that knowledge is not much different from belief: “Distinguishing between knowledge and belief, is therefore like pealing away the skin of an orange, for who thinks a pealed orange is anything but an orange nonetheless? So far from being distinct from knowledge, belief is a fundamental member of knowledge.” I find that the above analogy is grossly misleading: my opponent implies that we ought to consider knowledge and belief to be indistinguishable of each other because belief is a fundamental member of knowledge (which may only be true in the definition of knowledge). Indeed, belief is a member of knowledge, but you can have the orange skin without the orange. In that sense you would have beleif without knowledge, which is still different from knowledge and my opponent clearly knows it. The analogy presented is either purposely misleading or an error on the part of my opponent. Here is an important definition of knowledge: “Knowledge has been frequently described as ‘justified true belief,’ a belief held by an individual that is both true and for which they have some justification. Thus, for a belief to be knowledge, it must be the case that the belief is, in fact, true, and the believer must have justification for the belief. A belief that is true but for which we have no evidence cannot be described as knowledge.” [3] You can't interchange the meaning of the two! So if you have an orange skin in one hand and an orange without the skin in the other, you wouldn't be holding an orange in both hands. My opponent's further clarifications are just as fruitless, no pun intended! Theism and Atheism Armed with the above definition of knowledge and belief, we conclude that a believer can hold a belief which is not true and a believer can hold knowledge, which is a justified true belief. A believer can make two claims: I believe something -> a claim of belief without justification. I know something -> a claim of belief with justification. The first case describes the Agnostic (simply belief) and the second case describes the Gnostic (knowledge). Since we now know the distinction between knowledge and belief, we can look at the definitions which Pro has provided and see what they mean: “There's a difference between saying, ‘I do not believe (p)’ and ‘I believe (not-p).’” Correct, but the definition of belief is not the same as the definition of knowledge, therefore there is a world of difference between: I do not believe (p). I believe (not-p). I do not know (p). AND I know (not p). The first 3 statements require absolutely no proof, since they’re not a claim of knowledge. The distinction comes here: “I believe (not-p)” would be the Agnostic Atheist (i.e. believes ~God, but does not claim knowledge of ~God). “I know (not-p)” would be the Gnostic Atheist (i.e. claims knowledge of ~God). Both are Atheists because they believe in ~God, but only one claims to have knowledge and that’s the Gnostic Atheist. Therefore only the Gnostic Atheist has the burden of proof. The same can be applied to theism: “I believe (p)” is an Agnostic Theist (believes God, but doesn’t claim to knowledge of God), whereas “I know (p)” is the Gnostic Theist (claiming knowledge of God). Burden of Proof My opponent states: “Surely it would be absurd on my opponents definition of atheism, but that's not relevant, we're talking about the actual definition of Atheism: I believe Big Foot does not exist.” As I showed above, belief is not the same as knowledge, so simply believing that Big Foot does not exist would not require my opponent to show justification for this belief. If my opponent claims that he knows that Big Foot does not exist, then he must then show justification. Pro: “All I would have to do is show that no positive evidence exists for Big Foot and negative evidence for his existence, or that Big Foot is a logically incoherent idea, etc.” Response: The first part of that statement shows the absurdity of my opponents understating of how proof works! Showing that there is no positive evidence exists for Big Foot is practically impossible, since it would require that my opponent exhausts all possible sources of positive evidence (an impossible task)! Showing negative evidence or showing that Big Foot is a logical fallacy would be a viable way to prove Big Foot does not exists, but again: not believing in Big Foot carries no burden of proof! Pro: “All of these proofs just require a good understanding of bayesian inference.” Response: At this point I’m starting to doubt my opponent understands formal logic!!! My opponent seems to think that inductive reasoning is part of formal logic, so I presume that in my opponent’s world formal logic would permit this: “if P, therefore 99.9999% Q.” And no, proof does not require “full mathematical proof,” but it does require logical proof (a.k.a. Formal Proof)! I’m baffled that we even have to discuss this! Conclusion My opponent had purposely or mistakenly taken knowledge and belief to mean the same thing, when all of the resources cited and even some of my opponent’s statements clearly show that this is not the case. I have also demonstrated that “I believe ~God” is not the same as “I know ~God”, which is consistent with the definitions Agnostic Atheist and Gnostic Atheist, therefore successfully conflating the terms Agnostic/Gnostic and Atheist without redefining the term Atheist (which is at the core of this debate). My opponent’s false interpretation of knowledge/belief has led him to commit the fallacy of appeal to ignorance by shifting the burden of proof. Pro suggests that the burden of proof does not require “full [mathematical] proof,” but that proof by inductive reasoning is sufficient. In fact, neither is true: the burden of proof requires formal logic proof! Vote Con! [1] http://www.theoryofknowledge.info... [2] http://www.theoryofknowledge.info... [3] (http://ils.unc.edu...)