In the code snippet below I would have expected both r(x) and s(x) to be the same line, but the output is two radically different lines as shown below.

If there is a problem using the name r as a function name, then I would have expected some sort of error message, but did not find one.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\pgfmathdeclarefunction{r}{1}{\pgfmathparse{(2.0)}}
\pgfmathdeclarefunction{s}{1}{\pgfmathparse{(2.0)}}
\tikzstyle{MyPlotStyle}=[domain=-5:5, samples=50, ultra thick]
\begin{document}
Plot of $r(x)=2$ and $s(x)=2$ using PGF Version \pgfversion.
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}
\addplot[MyPlotStyle, red ]{r(x)};
\addplot[MyPlotStyle, blue]{s(x)};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}