Earth is flat.

Yes, but that is not my claim. All you have done here is created a straw man to knock down. In my opening statement, I said that I would defend the conclusion that belief in a flat Earth is rational since it is a properly basic belief; but, a properly basic belief, by definition, requires experience. On the other hand, you said "My claim is that saying that if you don't experience it, believing it is rational, opens the door to any conspiracy theory you want". Here is why this is not going to fly: 1. "My claim" You could not be more right. This is your claim, and quite frankly, I agree 100% with this. However, this is not the claim which I made in my opening statement, and is not the claim which you are tasked with countering. It is a mere straw man. 2. "IF you don't experience t, then believing it is rational justifies conspiracy theories" I agree 100% with this claim; unfortunately, it is not the same claim I am defending here. I am merely arguing that if you experience something, you can rationally believe it exists. It then does not follow however, that if there is an absence of experience, then you are still justified in your belief. What you have done here, is replace the premise of my argument, but keep the conclusion, but unfortunately the conclusion does not follow from such a premise. This is fallacious. 3. "For example, suppose I said the Earth is hollow, not made of molten rock because I never dug to the center of the Earth." "I could also say the moon landing was faked because I never personally went to the Moon and saw Neil Armstrong." Now you have taken the misrepresentation of my argument, and sneakily used it to justify conspiracy theories. Remember your claim is not what we are debating here. The only thing you accomplish here is debunking your own claim. But now let me demonstrate why my claim cannot be used in the same way: a. "Earth is hollow" In order for this belief to be rational by a properly basic belief, an individual would have to have direct experience with the subject of belief. In other words, they would have to encounter the hollowness of the Earth. Such encounters might resemble digging past the outer layer, or coming across a crevasse which allows you to see into the Earth's depths. On the other hand, if you do not have direct experience, then the belief is not properly basic, and you have to justify in some other way. So when you say "Without experience, the proclamation that it is rational justifies absurdities", you are not refuting a properly basic belief; and, you will find that a properly basic belief is not an excuse for a person to believe whatever he/she like. b. "Moon landing" I will keep this one brief, since I explained most of the faulty reasoning you employed above. If a person believes the moon landing was fake, in order for that belief to be properly basic, they would have to have direct experience with the subject. For instance, they may may have scene Niel at a bar shortly after the video aired; or, might have chanced on a fallaciousmoon landing takes. But if no such experience exist, then the belief is not properly basic. Conclusion: In my opening statement, I offered that if a person believes that the Earth is flat, their thinking is rational, as it is a properly basic belief. In a properly basic belief, the belief is reasonable if the person has direct experience with the subject of belief. I argued that this is true for flat Earth supporters, since they directly experience flatness every day. Of course my opponent was eager to claim that they are not experiencing a flat Earth but rather a round Earth that looks flat; Unfortunately, all this does is offer a different perspective into the mix. I would agree, that if a person lived life in a zoomed out state which revealed to him that the Earth was actually round, then he would be justified in believing it was so. However, that is not a state in which people view the world, and as a result it does not debunk my theory, but merely offers it another scenario for which my theory would work. It is important to note however, that regardless of whether or not either is true, the flat Earth believer still cannot be deemed irrational. The believer in a flat Earth bases his belief on observation and experience, which is a rational way to warrant a belief. In the end, my opponents first contention does not disprove my claim, but rather offers up a second example of how it operates. In the same way, my opponents second contention also fails to invalidate my claim. He declares that since someone somewhere somehow got a picture of the Earth, that any person who believes anything contrary to the picture is irrational. All this does is insert someone else's experience into another persons belief; however, this does not in any way deflate the properly basic belief claim. The properly basic claim is valid here only if the individual has personal experience; it will not be properly basic if he/she justifies their belief on another's experience. My opponent reverses this. He/she says that since Person B experiences a round Earth, then Person A is irrational if he does not accept the testimony of Person B. This is merely another way of stating that one persons personal experience with something makes another persons belief irrational. This is not going to fly. If personal experience with a subject justifies a conclusion about said subject, then it is arrogant for one person with different experience about the matter to credit the other with foolish thinking. Yet this is all my opponent does with his second contention, and as a result, he fails once again to debunk my claim. My opponents third and fourth contentions are intertwined, and I believe I have done a sufficient job of exposing the faulty reasoning behind them in the opening section of this response. So I will direct anyone who wants to revisit them to the above part of this section. For all of these reasons, I believe it is safe to say that I have done an excellent job of defending the claim I made in my opening statement. I have dismantled each contention my opponent brought against me, and have clarified my claim to him each time. However, in the end, my opponent summed up his entire case with a straw-man! I think it is clear that my argument for a properly basic belief is sound, and that my opponent was literally grasping at straws. I hope anyone who votes, does so with an open mind and puts their presuppositions aside. The point I wanted to make was that belief in a flat Earth is in fact rational, and I believe I have done that adequately. Thankyou References:https://plato.stanford.edu... This has a lot of good information about experience.https://plato.stanford.edu... This is an excellent source for what justifies something.http://www.iep.utm.edu... This source has some good explanations for properly basic beliefs. I would recomend reading it as a whole, but you may want to speed ahead to the section "Classical Foundationalism" which talks a little about it. (It is focused on a the debate of God's existence, but does have some good information).