I'd love more thoughts on my idea to avoid a...semantic argument of atheism as a belief system to an argument in a belief in the negative realities of organized religion.

As far as I can tell, you are asking a way to (actually) avoid the argument that atheism is just a belief in no god?

If that's the case, unfortunately you're right in that there is a lot of semantics, because the entire basis of A LOT of "informed" religious argument is a counter of our claim they have the Burden of Proof.

What everyone agrees on is the person making an assertion holds the burden- the argument is over who is asserting something, and the other person counters those assertions.

But since we both know we can't prove God (since both sides, if they've reached this point of the argument, acknowledge there is no actual proof) that is all we have left.

We state THEY have the burden, because they are asserting that God is real. They state we have the Burden, because we assert God isn't real. This is wrong, because we are not making a positive claim. Just as a scientist doesn't have the burden to disprove faeries, Santa, Clause, etc., we don't have the burden to disprove God. It is up to the person asserting something positively to prove their assertion.

Unfortunately for them, even if we held the burden (we don't, and never let them get away with saying that), A negative claim (which is what we are making, in response to their appropriately burdened statement) can be asserted through a proof of impossibility or an evidence of absence argument.

Unfortunately for us, the religious types are wont to bring in all sorts of first hand, faith based, un-testable claims to the floor, masquerading as "evidence". Then it becomes a case of us trying to convince them they really don't know how this debate thing/reality thing works.