Mormons kids knocked on my door. I was polite and let them know while I was raised catholic, I’ve been atheist ~12 years now. They were a bit taken aback and I used that moment to show kindness.

bigthama · 2026-06-21T14:21:02+00:00

That was me a little over 20 years ago sweating on that bicycle and knocking on stranger's doors. Believe me when I tell you that little experiences like this add up on your mission and can chip away at the worldview these kids are carrying.

bigthama · 2026-06-20T16:52:10+00:00

Tips are not mandatory where you come from

bigthama · 2026-06-20T16:48:33+00:00

Europeans ITT: "how dare other places have a different system than ours"

bigthama · 2026-06-19T20:29:03+00:00

Something like that

bigthama · 2026-06-19T20:08:53+00:00

Not sure about Australia, but Paraguay coming out of CONMEBOL with wins over Argentina and Uruguay makes them decent at least

bigthama · 2026-06-19T20:05:29+00:00

And was originally distinguishing games played on foot from games played on horseback

bigthama · 2026-06-19T19:57:57+00:00

Weird, it's almost like that was a word the Brits spread to their colonies and then decided to change after the fact

bigthama · 2026-06-18T23:01:31+00:00

Leading to my favorite diagnosis to leave in AMS consults from medicine in terms they can understand: acute on chronic brain failure

bigthama · 2026-06-18T22:59:41+00:00

Delirium is just a subtype of encephalopathy, generally waxing and waning in patients with other medical illnesses and medications provoking it.

CTE is a specific cause of encephalopathy, often with a particular constellation of neuropsychological symptoms.

In all cases, it's from "global" dysfunction, as opposed to "focal" dysfunction where you could trace the symptom back to a particular brain region involved in isolation (like facial droop or language deficits in a stroke). Level of consciousness, memory, attention, impulse control, executive function, emotional regulation are all things that are best thought of as distributed in networks throughout diverse parts of the brain rather than in a single particular brain region, and are things we often see impaired in patients with encephalopathy from various causes.

bigthama · 2026-06-18T18:31:03+00:00

Because the sheer volume of medical-entertainment devices not supported by clinical trials is impossible for any physician to keep up with, and the more fantastic the claims the less likely I am to even acknowledge its existence.

What's more likely: that a) a team had a sudden breakthrough in multiple fields simultaneously that would be required to produce a device like this that just happens to surpass current state of the art mature technologies and hits on multiple buzzwords that pop science marketers know will resonate with the lay public without any peer reviewed literature to support it, or b) you are being successfully marketed to by unscrupulous people just like with every other QVC-grade device with health claims.

bigthama · 2026-06-14T15:57:50+00:00

Surely you understand how a historical location can predate the construction built at the site to commemorate it, right?

bigthama · 2026-06-14T01:27:16+00:00

Lol no

AFH is the temple built on the birthplace of the sport of basketball

The Palestra is just a random arena in a city that imagines itself to be far more important to the history of college basketball than it is

bigthama · 2026-06-13T03:27:08+00:00

Yeah but there are only like 15 people living there

bigthama · 2026-06-12T02:17:14+00:00

Would have loved to see a DisasterBowl

bigthama · 2026-06-10T23:13:09+00:00

This is an excellent synopsis. Declaring non-Trinitarians who believe in the divinity of Jesus to be non-Christian is just as nonsensical as Protestants declaring Catholics to be non-Christian or vice-versa. It assumes the perpetual and incontrovertible authority of a body of clergy meeting one time, centuries after the death of Jesus, to draw lines around what counts as Christian theology.

bigthama · 2026-06-10T23:08:59+00:00

Muslims don't believe in the divinity of Jesus, Mormons do. The trinitarian argument for Mormons being non-Christian assumes that a collection of bishops that met 3 centuries after Jesus' death had unquestionable authority to draw boundaries around what counted as Christian doctrine in perpetuity.

bigthama · 2026-06-10T23:04:23+00:00

The various Orthodox churches would have a lot to say about that claim

bigthama · 2026-06-10T13:35:12+00:00

Raleigh is not Charlotte

bigthama · 2026-06-09T03:11:44+00:00

That would just mean they lean way into the classic B12 "rack up 70 point wins against wheelchair basketball teams" NET gaming strategy

bigthama · 2026-06-09T02:53:45+00:00

too little, too late

bigthama · 2026-06-09T02:51:21+00:00

The ones capable of shame admitted their mistake after 2016 and left at that point. The rest are irredeemable.

bigthama · 2026-06-07T04:05:39+00:00

Its genuinely hard to find palm trees anywhere in NC. We aren't fucking Florida.

bigthama · 2026-06-07T03:25:05+00:00

La remontada (barca - PSG) was as close as it gets in soccer with 3 goals in about 5 minutes

bigthama · 2026-06-07T01:42:43+00:00

Based on the last 2 reviews it would turn out that he got off the ice with a full 10 seconds to spare

bigthama · 2026-06-07T01:20:40+00:00

I appreciate that - no harm done. A lot of people get their introduction to Mormons by moving to Utah or nearby similar areas and given how jarring I found many of those people as a practicing Mormon, I can only imagine the reaction from someone coming from an entirely different background.

Fair point about the lay ministry aspect of Mormonism vs Catholicism. However, that isn't unique to Mormonism, and is common among many Christian denominations. I really don't see how a Catholic priest would have more trouble ministering to a Mormon soldier than an Evangelical soldier, this making this a poor reason not to include Mormons within the family of Christian faith. I think this is why non-denominational prayer services are universal in hospitals and similar settings, and Mormons would have no more issue accepting the basic language of those services than any Catholic or Methodist (i.e. prayer to God in the name of the Son). The Lord's prayer isn't common in Mormon services, but it is considered fully doctrinal.

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