The sky may not be the best example because it doesn't exist, rather it is an illusion. A better example would be a red rose which is actually every color but red and so it reflects red light while absorbing the other visible wavelengths.

A rose may not be the best example because they don't exist. A better example would be a fragrant ripe peach, which has actually every other smell in the world than peaches, so it reflects the peach-smell molecules while absorbing other smellable wavelengths.

By your rationale, everything smells like shit, except shit. :)

The example I was reading about was the difference between two pre-Socratic greek philosophers, one of whom was convinced that substances don't actually change--that is to say, a flower can't really spring from a flowerbed--because he couldn't explain why one substance would change into another.

(Later, still before Socrates, some guy decided that what's going on is that millions of little substances form together to create a flower, and those little substances don't actually change, just fall apart and clumb together. Clever chap.)

That is to say, even though he saw that a flower springs from the earth, he just didn't believe that's really happening, because he couldn't explain it using his reason.

I was just trying to be silly, Firas.

If you think rationalism is quirky, try working through objectivism from its basic tenets. A good many self-proclaimed randroids have no clue what objectivism really is. They skipped the Galt speech and could not get beyond the first ten pages of "The ... Epistomology". Likewise for the anti-randians, who would be even more disgusted and in ways they would never imagine.

It's rational that people sometimes act illogically.

X + ism != X.

Doesn't that make rationalism closer to blind faith than to empiricism?

Critics of empiricism would argue that empiricists have "faith" that all truths about the physical world are revealed through experience. Empiricism is paradoxical, since that very proposition is not revealed through experience. The idea of "blind faith" is so broad that you can use it to criticize just about anyone.

Also, "rationalism" doesn't mean "being rational" (see stilicho's comment), so the whole premise of this post is way off.

It doesn't make sense to talk about what a word means without context. You start out seeming like you're talking about the dictionary definition of the adjective "rational," but then it seems like you're talking about epistemology.