MBB: Midwest Conference

[The Roop]

Scattered, smothered and covered. Wish we had one around here.

[Greek Tragedy]

Scattered, smothered and covered. Wish we had one around here.

I'm not sure if Titan2000 just came up with that or where he goes, but coming back from Salem last year, the most Northern Waffle House we found was just South of Cincinnati.  However, good news for us, we located a White Castle in Wisconsin, Pleasant Prairie, I believe! I now have a White Castle coffee mug and a Waffle House coffee mug.   

[The Roop]

I've seen them as far north as Indianapolis, but they have the old white signs and you've really gotta be watching for them.

[John Gleich]

Check it out.  It turns out there are even a couple in Southern IL.

[Mr. Ypsi]

One more attempt at clarification (HOPEFULLY, the last!): the 'rationality and religion' discussion began with my responding to April's observation that God might not cooperate with a search for Him.  If that is true (and I think it is irrefutable that an omnipotent Creator COULD construct such a universe), then human reason is simply no match for such a universe.  IF we assume that to be a potentiality, rationality is simply not the right connection to either theism or atheism - by definition, neither can be proven.  Therefore, the only conclusion rationalism can reach is, by definition, agnosticism.

PS, in the sense I am using the term, the opposite of rational is NOT irrational - it is arational (if only that much needed term existed)!  In other words, either theism or atheism are simply outside the boundaries of what rationalism can discuss.  BOTH are faith-based, since God's existence can neither be proven nor disproven.

Incidentally, evolution remains a 'theory' in the same sense that gravity or the heliocentric solar system remain theories.  None can be 'proven' in an absolute sense (science doesn't operate that way), but all are beyond any serious doubt in their general outlines.  A theory is just the best explanation that fits all the known facts - it is not (as in common parlance) a 'guess'.  The fossil record has been 'bery, bery good' (to use the old SNL routine) to evolution - evolution produces testable hypotheses, most of which have been supported.  "Creation science" (or its Trojan horse, intelligent design), on the other hand, have NO testable hypotheses, and are therefore not scientific theories.  The fossil record has proven evolution just about as much as ANY theory ca be proven.

Has evolution proven the origin of life - NO, it was never intended to.  As Darwin titled his classic, evolution explains "The Origin of Species".  That is demonstrated over and over and over again in the fossil record.  As to how life began in the first place - evolution is silent and may or may not be forever.  At least so far (and I suspect, forever) there is still room for a Creator if that is your belief.  But it is now abundantly clear that, if so, He set rules on how that Creation would evolve.

[Titan Q]

From a discussion of Waffle House to the meaning of life.  It must be the off-season.

[Mr. Ypsi]

From a discussion of Waffle House to the meaning of life.  It must be the off-season.

Are you trying to imply that Waffle House and the meaning of life are unrelated topics?!

Heretic!

[diehardfan]

April,

I'm hurt that you would even consider that I would want to cut off communications based on this disagreement - afterall, we haven't even addressed the subject of whether or not IWU having the same number of titles in bball as the next three schools combined is an 'Act of God' .

I'm not clear on how 'what' and 'why' questions EVER come in conflict - except for fundamentalists who think the Bible is a science (and history) text.

if and when we actually meet, I have no doubt we would be highly compatible in our love of d3 bball.

You'll have to excuse me, I've lost many friends over more stupid reasons... me not being a feminazi is one of the primary ones. Besides, you gave a sweeping "I have no respect for people who believe ___" which included a group of people that does not necessarily include me, but includes many, many people I care about.

Not so compatible in our choice of school. What does it say about me that I didn't get truly frusterated in this whole debate until you dared to question the overwhelming superiority of Wheaton. 

I am apparently in WAFFLE HOUSE (it just has to be capitalized like the sign, sorry) siberia, as well as d3hoops siberia and natural hair color siberia and cracker barrel siberia and ten thousand villages siberia,  .... and yet there is still no snow. 

[diehardfan]

From a discussion of Waffle House to the meaning of life.  It must be the off-season.

We weren't discussing the meaning of life, we were discussing the fact that Chuck wrongly thinks that the primary thing that gives my life meaning doesn't exist thanks to logical fallacies.

[Gregory Sager]

I'm hurt that you would even consider that I would want to cut off communications based on this disagreement - afterall, we haven't even addressed the subject of whether or not IWU having the same number of titles in bball as the next three schools combined is an 'Act of God' .

I was going to interrupt your dialogue with April to make a smart-aleck observation about God's existence being infinitely more provable by the fact that NPU has more than twice as many national titles in men's basketball as the rest of the CCIW combined. But I'll eschew the smart-aleck observation to instead make mention of how much I dislike athletes invoking God's involvement in the outcome after a victory. It's not only ridiculous to think that God favored Philadelphia over New York, or Seattle over Cleveland (did God take an interest in the over/under, too?), but it makes the player and his faith both look bad by his making God appear to have such a skewed sense of priorities.

If a player thanks God on national television for giving him the ability to play a game, that's another matter. I don't see anything wrong with that. But implying in one way or another that God wanted that player's team to win -- that's just self-aggrandizing and shallow.

[hjmphelp]

Sager-
THIS we can agree on!

[systemfan86]

I wish I could give proper credit to the comedian who said this first, but I can't, so...

The logical response to the athlete who implies that God wanted them to win is for the athlete from the losing team to imply that they would have won but God was against them.

Hmmmm, does sound a little like Mike Holmgren's whining...

[Mr. Ypsi]

From a discussion of Waffle House to the meaning of life.  It must be the off-season.

We weren't discussing the meaning of life, we were discussing the fact that Chuck wrongly thinks that the primary thing that gives my life meaning doesn't exist thanks to logical fallacies.

I NEVER said God doesn't exist.  I said that rationality, per se, can neither prove (nor disprove) such existence.  That is a BIG difference!

That's why I coined a word that I think SHOULD exist: arational.  Contrary to the offense that PS took, I would NEVER suggest that faith is irrational.  (SOME believers are certainly irrational, but then SOME nonbelievers are as well!)  Since human reason can (presumably) never DEMONSTRATE the existence (or nonexistence) of a deity (people a lot smarter than I have tried unsuccessfully for thousands of years), faith occupies a different realm than reason.  That doesn't make it true or false, or better or worse, just different.

[Greek Tragedy]

From a discussion of Waffle House to the meaning of life.  It must be the off-season.

Your life if consided unfulfilled until you've eaten at a Waffle House and/or a White Castle.

[The Roop]

Need to add Sonic to the list as well.

Wish I could tell you about my coffee mug collection, but apparently there's been a  back odrer.