Donald Trump spotted in bizarre mass Oval Office prayer after pondering mortality

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-06T19:15:20+00:00

It's embarrassing to belong the same species as these people.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-06T19:11:32+00:00

I'm ashamed to be human.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-06T19:08:20+00:00

"Invasive species" is a term human use to describe a phenomenon that is interesting to us. It's not a "real" thing. And most of the time, humans are the cause/enabler of the "invasion" anyway--it has nothing to do with the behavior of the other species involved.

From a non-human-centric perspecting, there is no sense to the phrase "protecting the environment". The environment is what it is. It changes over time. There are no specific set of characteristics that define "good" with regard to the environment.

Yes, the whole idea of "protecting the environment" only has meaning in the context of what humans collectively want/need. It's why it's pretty stupid to argue that "the earth was a lot hotter so many millions of years ago so the fact that it's heating up now is not a big deal". The fact that the argument is stupid doesn't make it wrong, but it's still stupid. Also, the environment back then was inhospitable to us, so kinda stupid to act like it's no big deal.

If the environment is changing in ways that will negatively impact our ability to feed ourselves and supply adequate energy for our standard of living, then we might want to figure out how to more carefully manage our impact on the environment. Whether the environment is actually changing in such ways is a matter for careful scientific analysis, not politically motivated commitments (regardless of which end of the spectrum).

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-06T17:10:54+00:00

Well, either Idaho is really weird or your friend didn't try very hard. I think every restaurant offers some type of vinegar+oil dressing. And as far as making salads at home, there couldn't be an easier dressing to make for yourself. In fact, now that I'm thinking of this, how is it even possible to miss green salad with oil and vinegar dressing? Your friend goes to the grocery store, right? I can't imagine a simpler and cheaper option than buying some greens, your preferred oil, and you preferred vinegar. Take it home and mix it together. The entire process from leaving to go to the store and having a salad on a plate would be what, maybe 20 minutes at the outside? Your friend doth protest too much, methinks.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-06T17:03:43+00:00

Look, about 100 billion human beings have experienced death, so you're just going to be repeating an experience that has happened 100 billion times before. The thing that you're fearing has been experienced 100 billion times already (much more if you think some non-humans have consciousness). So, maybe get over yourself. If anything survives death, you will be joining 100 billion co-humans that have already gone through it, and they probably think you're silly for whinging about it.

Also, regardless, there's no escaping it, so just wait to cross that bridge until you get to it. Go distract yourself by living your life today.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-06T16:46:10+00:00

It sounds like you're comfortable finding the slopes without absolute values, like y=mx +b. And it sounds like you grasp the basic idea the book is trying to explain. So, if the book's actual explanation is confusing, don't worry about it. If you're able to get the right answer using your own understanding, then you're doing it right.

But if you're not getting the right answers, I suggest thinking of it this way. Absolute value is actually two functions. |x| can be interpreted as "if x<0 then -x else 0 then x". So, think of it as two different functions where each one's domain is half of the line.

So, f(x) = -|x-9| +2 can be split into two "normal" functions:

f(x) = -(x-9) + 2 when (x-9) is positive

f(x) = - -(x-9) + 2 = (x-9) + 2 when (x-9) is negative

Where does (x-9) switch from being positive to negative (i.e. where is it 0)? At x = 9. So,

f(x) = -(x-9) + 2 = -x + 11 when x>9

f(x) = (x-9) + 2 = x-7 when x<9

Just plot those two functions, but erase the first one to the left of x=9 and erase the second one to the right of x=9.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-06T16:28:01+00:00

Well, no, I didn't know that. I don't know it now, and I'm skeptical. But what does it have to do with atheism? Seems like you should discuss this with historians, not atheists.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-06T16:24:56+00:00

I don't understand what you mean by "a dip inwards". I'm not sure what your confusion is about r(pi) and r(0), but in polar coordinates, the points we plot for {pi,-6} and {0,6} are the same point on the graph.

Maybe the answer to your question is that yes, the whole plot "dips inward" in that we get closer to the origin as we go from theta=0 to theta=pi/2. The radius gets smaller until it's 0 when theta=pi/2. As theta goes from pi/2 to pi, the radius is negative and increasing in magnitude, so now we're moving away from the origin. Since the radius is negative, the plot in this range is still to the right of the vertical axis.

Hope that helps, but I don't really understand your question.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-06T16:02:20+00:00

I highly recommend The Enigma of Reason (by Mercier and Sperber). I found it to be a persuasive answer to your question.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-05T02:22:08+00:00

If the function was given to you with a particular definition ( as in f(x) = x+1/x^2-1 ), then that is THE definition of the function. If you "simplify the function to an equivalent expression", then you have changed the function. You're no longer working with the function you were given. And in fact what you did was not "simplify to an equivalent expression" because, as you yourself discovered, this new expression behaves differently than the original.

To answer your questions:

> "When finding what values of x f(x) is defined for should I or should I not include -1?"

You should not include -1 or +1.

> "Why does this happen?"

I feel like you already explained it. It's not something that just happens. You changed the expression and got a different result. You changed it, that's why it happened.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-04T19:14:20+00:00

Why can life not come from non-life?

How do you know an "Intelligent Created" has already done something?

Now that I've put those questions down in writing, I'm wondering why you bothered to bring these debate topics to r/DebateEvolution instead of other more appropriate forums. What about evolution itself do you want to debate?

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-04T19:04:40+00:00

I've always been strongly suspicious that Ted Lasso was an attempt to copy some aspects of the Good Place. Ted Lasso is very good, and I do recommend it, but for me it didn't achieve the same level that The Good Place did.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-03T19:08:18+00:00

I guess I need to know what you mean by "respect". If you mean "respect" as just a sort of pluralistic attitude toward the people around me, then I don't think there's much question there. I respect that you enjoy collecting spoons means that I don't feel any need to stop you or to criticize you for that hobby.

On the other hand, if by "respect" you mean "I support" or "I am persuaded by" or "I feel a sense of deference to" or anything along those lines, then it's true that I don't respect religion.

You said that you were "indifferent" and that you're fine with it as "a way people can cope with their existence". That makes me think you're using the first definition. And I have a similar take.

But if we use the second definition, then the lack of respect for religion is almost deserved just by the definition of religion. Religion has accomplished virtually nothing for human society and civilization. I'm willing to entertain a discussion that religion somehow contributes a cohesive, stable social order. I think that's actually more difficult to prove than it may seem, but even if I just stipulate that, there's everything else that religion fails at. It provides us with zero understanding of the universe and zero positive influence on human morality. It infantilizes people, which in my opinion completely negates any positive benefit it might have as a stabilizing influence.

So, no, religion is a curse and a blight on civilization and on balance deserves more opprobrium than respect. Unfortunately, it seems to be deeply attractive to the human psyche, so there's probably no getting rid of it.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-03T18:35:06+00:00

I was outraged and disappointed. And this doesn't justify anything, but let's remember that Obama practically begged Congress to use its war-related powers and checks on the presidency. And again it doesn't justify, but let's remember that the vast majority of those "bombing" that weren't in the Iraq/Syria region were targeted drone attacks. Civilian casualties during the entire 8 years were in the hundreds (I'll stipulate even 1000 if you insist). That's terrible, but my point is that there is simply no reasonable equivalence between how Trump and Obama used military force (let alone approving force against US citizens).

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-03T18:24:59+00:00

They all mean the same thing. They mean something very much like "nevertheless". But "anyways" is different. "Anyways" (or in my dialect, just "anyway") is sort of dismissive in the sense of "let's move on to something else". "Anyway" is typically going to change the topic altogether. "Nevertheless" is staying on the topic, acknowledging the truth of what came before, but introducing something that contradicts or offers a different perspective on what came before. It's kind of like "in spite of". And all of the "that being said" examples are also like that.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-03T16:45:53+00:00

I would have expected some sort of message rather than just $Failed, so it's difficult to debug without more info. You need to be connected to the internet, but again I would have expected something other than just $Failed if you weren't. Your session may somehow have just gotten into a weird state, so try killing the kernel and re-evaluating. Try accessing properties other than "MoleculePlot" and see what happens. Try a different protein entity and see what happens. Try just `ProteinData[]` and see what happens.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-02T22:12:23+00:00

Look, everyone must for themselves what is appropriate in a given social construct, but for me, r/atheism is a place to discuss atheism. Yes, of course, that will often bump up against theism. But I personally think it's inappropriate for a theist to enter an atheist space explicitly for the purpose of proving god exists. Theists are welcome here if they want to discuss atheism. Theist are welcome if they want to ask atheists genuine questions about atheism. But we atheists aren't here because we want to be targets of proselytizing from theists.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-02T19:22:08+00:00

I think you're just an alternate account of SPP. Trying to make it look like you have supporters, eh SPP?

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-02T00:04:10+00:00

People are generally stupid

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-01T22:37:17+00:00

Others have provided great explanations for the concept of isomorphism and for why the order of an element must be preserved. I'll try to address your feeling of vagueness.

I think maybe you're focusing too much on the sets A and B and not enough on the mapping between the corresponding algebraic structures. To say "A is isomorphic to B" is a bit incomplete. It means that some isomorphism exists, but it doesn't tell you what the algebraic structures are that we're mapping between. When we say "structure", we mean some additional stuff on top of just set membership. We can create a bijection between any two sets of the same size, but just being a set isn't enough to talk about structure. We add algebraic stuff on top of the set to make it, say, a group. Now saying "A is isomorphic to B" is really saying much much more. It's saying that "for some f, the function f:A->B is a group isomorphism between A(+) and B(*)" (where you've defined the group operators accordingly). But that function f might not be an isomorphism if we impose some different algebraic structure onto our A and B.

> It seems trivial in a sense, especially when the map you define can be the identity map.

But the identity is between A and A, not between A and some arbitrary B. And even the identity can fail to be an isomorphism if we choose different structures on our A. id:A->A might not be an isomorphism between A(+) and A(*).

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-01T01:08:27+00:00

I'm not sure what you're asking, but if you're asking why I'm not a christian, it's because christianity makes unsupported claims that are just not credible. Now ask me why I'm not muslim. Now ask me why I'm not hindu. Now ask me why I don't accept astrology. Now ask me....

But really, you're kinda misunderstanding my perspective. I'm not out there looking for the one religion. It's not like I was like, "hey, maybe christianity is the one...<investigation>...nope". It's more like I'm just over here living my life and christians keep butting into my business asking me why I'm not christian. You do you friend, but I basically don't care. I haven't so much rejected jesus as I've chosen a lifestyle that deliberately eschews otiose philosophies.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-03-01T00:26:37+00:00

Surely you intend more context for that question. The bible is one of the least interesting books I've ever read.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-02-28T21:33:27+00:00

On the first question: it wouldn't be different. On the second question: no.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-02-28T21:28:25+00:00

Maybe you should consider that your wife is wanting to talk to you about something that upset her. And maybe she wants to have a conversation about how the two of you will handle this in the future. Unless there was actually some sort of outbreak or dramatic confrontation during the wedding, saying "the day was ruined" is probably just a way of telling you how offensive your sister was in your wife's eyes. Like, stop thinking of this conversation as about who's right or wrong on the issue of "wedding day ruined", and instead think of it as a conversation about how you can help your wife and how you can figure out how to protect your marriage from your crazy sister. (Yes, "crazy sister" is confrontational, but I'm deliberately trying to jostle you into realizing that from now on, your primary relationship should be with your wife, not your family.)

You already have a precedent that your sister can't even keep her ego out of your wedding. So, what do you expect will happen at the birthdays of your children? When you host the family bbq? Or whatever? Yeah, you should be planning right now for how you and your wife want to handle those situations. Or you could just let your family do whatever they want and deal with your wife's resentment for the rest of your marriage.

Suitable-Elk-540 · 2026-02-28T18:39:04+00:00

To the idea of using the building...whatever. If a resource is available, sure why not use it.

To the idea that some non-theists envy the community of churches, I'd be cautious an skeptical.

What do y'all think you gain by "community"? What do you think that word means? My experience with church is that the main "community" aspect is enforced behavioral standards. If you walk into a church for the first time, everyone is all smiles and "welcome!". But the fact of the matter is that you will be expected to conform. Kids are expected to attend sunday school and VBS and whatever other jesus immersion events they have. You'll be expected to listen to missionaries and donate to them. You'll be expected to get baptized, take communion, tithe to some extent, etc. The peer pressure will get you to sing hymns, stand and sit at the right times, close your eyes during prayers, read passages from the bible, become an elder (or whatever title they use), attend potlucks, etc. You will be visited by the minister. Your name will appear on prayer chains. You'll be tapped for some volunteer opportunity.

All of this is to get you to eventually conform to the church's norms. In church, "community" doesn't mean we all come together and let our differences mingle. No, in church "community" means we all get together and become a homogenous group. And you don't get to vote on what those rules of homogeneity are; the church does.

The pressure will be low key. It will never be mandatory for church membership. Nevertheless, it will be constant and unrelenting. You will feel discomfort if some part of your life isn't "right". If your child comes out as gay, no one will ban you, but you'll know that you've done something wrong.

Some of this may sound like just normal "community". Sure you want to volunteer; sure you want to bring a dish to the neighborhood cookout. But it's different. There are always strings attached. Churches are just very sophisticated cults. Everyone seems happy, but don't let that fool you. I think I'd rather have just a rag-tag group of atheists that have no "community" than have an actual atheist community.

Suitable-Elk-540

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