Debate about whatever you want

The burden of proofMy friend, why do you have to make it so easy on you? You say all you have to do is to refute that rationalism is. But let's take a closer look at these two. Arguably, these two are, well, complete opposites. To put simply, the former, rationalism, is from "priori knowledge", knowledge gained beforehand. Such examples are in mathematics, gemetry, and logic--if the premise is correct, then the following facts listed will also be correct. On the other hand, Empiricism is the "postriori" knowledge, the knowledge gained from experience. This covers just about everything else, such as how to play the piano, swim, and jumping, although it is not entirely physical related, of course. However, note that in the real life, our knowledge comes from BOTH combined together. It makes sense. You can't exactly prove from mere experience that "3+3 equals 6 because I have three apples and then I had three more apples and now I have six apples". To clarify this, let us think that a man in experience has only seen trees with green leaves. Therefore he reasons that all trees' leaves are green. [But using rationalism, one would think through, knowing that the leaves have special chemicals that turns them yellow in the fall] But he is wrong, because experience can only last so long. Experience must be combined along with reason in order to be fool-proof. (While on the other hand, logic is solid and unmoving, and does not necessarily have to come from experience).And speaking of logic's solitity, let us move on to my first argument...Thinking through can deduce many things that work outA famous thinker of rationalism is Descartes. You've probably heard of his unbeatable argument, "I think, therefore I am." Is this really from experience? Are you there whenever you think about yourself? Sure you are, but from mere experience you cannot deduce that you will always be there regardless of the circumstance. Only by using logic can you know that if you can think, you are there, even if a devil is trying to fool you into being "absolutely nothing".This is explained in one of his other experiments. He had used a wax candle as an example. As you observe a wax candle burn, the color changes, the smell becomes different, and the size dwindles down. If you have no reason or logical deduction, and mere experience, we can be confused and even think that we are seeing a different thing. However, by using human intuition, we know that the wax candle is still a wax candle, just merely changing size or form.Any of our five senses can be fooledYou may notice that I am dismissing empiricism further and further. Why is that? Well you see, by dismissing empiricism, I further support rationalism. These two theories are truly opposites, for if I support one then I must disprove the other, and if I support the other, rationalization must be put down. That is how my opponent attempts to avoid the burden of proof by trying to say that denying rationalism does not mean favoring empiricism, but saying rationalism is not sound means empiricism is nearly the only way of thinking! [Think about it, without reason, we only have experience to lay back upon.]A good example of why empiricism is not trustworthy is the infamous eye optical illusion. Pictured above is only one of the few well-known eye optical illusion. Even with experience, you can only suppose that the circle is bouncing about, moving like you're on LSD. As you can see empiricism is really not to be trusted. On the other hand, with reason you can tell that in reality the picture is perfectly still, even if your eyes tell you otherwise.But at the end...In the end, I really don't have to prove rationalism to be more powerful than empiricism. In fact, my opponent COULD indeed try to prove empiricism better, but it actually wouldn't prove rationalism to be false. Both systems have their own flaws, and saying purely, 100% using one over another is completely pointless. But of course, according to the resolution, I have to prove rationalism sound, being able to prove the truth. While sometimes it indeed can be flawed, and human intuition cannot always just "think" and "prove" that, for example, God exists, or perhaps eternal souls, they are still vague topics (which even experience has yet to fully prove or disprove). However, I believe I have managed to prove enough that rationalism does indeed, most times prove the truth, and is therefore trustworthy, or in the words of the resolution, a sound system.