Atheism is an accepted religion.

My debate opponent has decided not to post any arguments during round 2. Since this leaves me with no arguments to counter and since any arguments or rebuttal in round 3 cannot be included in my round 3 cross examination or closing statements, PRO has therefore forfeited this debate. Since my opponent has been on this site, posted for at least one other debate topic, and has not requested more time to present her argument I can only assume that she has conceited due to lack of argument and possibly adaptation of the CON argument as truth. I do think that there were grounds on challenging the evidence I presented in round one for my societal definition. It"s extremely difficult to prove what "society" "thinks". I believe I made a good argument for using Wikipedia as a societal indicator and it would have been difficult for an opponent to discount this reference. Also, I had the literal meaning on the CON side so perhaps proving society"s definition wasn"t a "prove-or-bust" scenario. I specifically stated that it was an option and I included it to improve the PRO argument since anyone that opened up a dictionary could see that the literal meaning supports CON. I wanted to provide a rebuttal for PRO and to keep it from a debate based on semantics. There were two PRO arguments I expected. One was mentioned in the comments section, the fact that the first constitutional amendment"s rights have been extended to atheism. This has been evident in several cases, including the one referenced in the comments sections, and also in tax law. However, I provided a rebuttal in the comments section. In summary, and evidenced by the Federal Court"s decision in the referenced case, the court does not distinguish between non-religion and religion and often references non-religion as religion. This is due to the fact that the first amendment "mandates government neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion." [1]. In other words, freedom of religion also means freedom of non-religion. Therefore, for first amendment purposes, religion and non-religion are the same. However, this does not prove that atheism is a religion nor does it disprove any part of the CON argument because it does not define religion it only interprets the first amendment"s protection. The second argument I expected would be an attempt to classify it as a secular religion. However, secular religion is not religion and therefore could be argued that it is not an acceptable argument for this debate. Another case against this argument would be that, by definition, secular religions require a system of indoctrination or code of conduct. For instance, this is the case for the argument that communism is a secular religion and that the Communist Manifesto is it"s code of conduct. However, unlike other secular philosophies there is no one ideology that atheists adhere to. This is mainly due to the fact that it is a singular belief that is adaptable to different religions. Therefore, any code of conduct would conflict with say the code of conduction for Buddhism or Hinduism that have their own holy or sacred texts. Thanks in advance for your votes. I look forward to debating PRO in the future. [1]. http://caselaw.findlaw.com...