Atheism and Theism are different.

For my benefit, can you italicize the text you're quoting from me in the future? I was a bit confused at points in your last round. So unlike Pro I'm simply going to respond to my opponent's rebuttals. I'm not going to quote what I'm responding to line-by-line. Pro never actually refutes any of my arguments so they're all going to extend straight across your flow. I will touch on a few on-case issues at the end of this round, but as explicitly chooses not to even cover the arguments I make I feel like this round would be better used to cover framework. First is the issue of setting a weighing mechanism - a. Pro claims that I don't get to tell the voters how to vote, but that's the entire point of contest debate. You make arguments for or against a given proposition, and you warrant how those arguments should be interpreted by your judges. by If my opponent simply wanted to have an informal bull-session with no declared winners or losers, he could have gone to the forums or posted a thread on thread on reddit. Instead he chose to set up this debate, and when one engages in a debate in a forum such as this there is value in figuring out how votes should be allocated. I am very much-so in my rights to highlight an issue I'm winning and urge the vote on it. b. One assumes that the person who opens a debate proposition holds the burden of proof. There is nothing in Pro's round one to suggest that the burden of proof is shared, so to that extent the entire burden rests on him. There are multiple warrants as to why this is true (i) is that debates of this nature function as a truth-testing paradigm, if we assume the resolution is true before any argumentation happens, then debate on it's legitimacy can't happen. (i) is presumption, that existing structures continue to exist unless change can be warranted. Pro gets the privilege of framing the round, he can't claim that privilege and also hedge out on his responsibilities there. It would be like a person throwing a party and then getting angry when their guests arrive without any food or games. Those are the host's responsibility unless explicitly noted otherwise prior to the beginning of the round. Second is the issue of fairness- a. Despite quoting my argument on truisms directly, Con completely glosses over the warrant here. If all he had to do in order to win the debate was show that these two words had different definitions, then there would be no reason to have this debate whatsoever. The resolution would be a truism and meaningful discussion could never occur. b. Semantics kill debate. They just do. I understand the utility of offering some cursory definitions, but Pro has already done that. There is no reason to debate the dictionary. Words do indeed have meaning, but they also have nuances that extend beyond their semantic meanings. In order for this to be a debate, I have to have ground to argue, and if you reject my truism warning in favor of Con's 'they have different definitions so they're different' then there's no ground for me to argue. *** On-case I just want to note a few things. 1. It was pro's decision to have this debate, and he set a 3 day time limit for each round. If he wasn't able to allot time to post even a single argument or rebuttal then that is his own fault. He can pass this round if wants to, I don understand that sometimes things just aren't workable time-wise, but if this continues into further rounds then that needs to be reflected in your vote. 2. Claiming without warrant that my arguments are weak so he's not going to refute them is a bad move. Unless Pro responds to my arguments their very existence on your flow is a reason to default Con every single time. 3. I spend a good deal of time on framework in round one, but I also make three different argument for why the ballot needs to go Con. Pro can't just ignore these, he has to refute them. At the point he doesn't he loses before any debate can actually happen.