Posts by hiddenpuma75

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095675/.

Melissa Stewart6 said:I think you've actually got three angry ladies running circles around you instead of just two.

Honestly, it reminds me of an Almodovar's film, where three women all lose their minds over one guy and just won't let him live. 😁

5) So, where exactly did I go wrong? 🤔

Was it because I cited my own defense from the Critique of Christianity thread? I suppose you aren't supposed to quote your own posts from different topics, 🤔right?

6) Is it okay if I write my new Apologia Pro Vita Sua now?

7) Could I please get some clear instructions from the expert jury—or should I call you the judicial council?—regarding what is and isn't allowed when presenting my defense?

1) Regarding the thread "Reporting posts by my philosophy colleague Sandra Murphy33 and Melissa Stewart6," they’ve essentially teamed up to stage an intervention against hiddenpuma75 (check out post 33). After twenty years of contributing to this forum, hiddenpuma75 finally gave them their due, and now they're looking to push him out fast. I suspect it's just because he doesn't share their exact views, which clearly gets under their skin.

2) Yesterday, I actually tried to post my defense on that same reporting thread, but the moderator wiped it out, labeling it as Spam. I ended up getting a one-day timeout, even though there wasn't any clear breakdown of the points used against me.🤔

3) All I did was copy over my arguments from post 379 on the Philosophy board within the Critique of Christianity thread. There, I demonstrated that these accusations are wildly exaggerated, factually incorrect in certain parts, and rooted entirely in personal animosity.

4) Since these two furious ladies 🙂 are working overtime to get someone banned, shouldn't the accused at least be allowed to defend themselves, right?

Joseph Bailey41 said:🎉

Rumors about hiddenpuma75's "death" on this forum 😲 are a bit over the top!

,and I really appreciate Joseph Bailey41 checking in on me 🙂

And honestly, what is it you're actually looking for that hasn't happened yet? It reminds me of that woman who gets so offended she ends up lashing out at her own friends instead.

If I’d had my way, I could have easily ended up married to an artist myself. 😠

🤣

Dana Brooks3 said:🤣

I had this idea to start one too... I was imagining if we all opened our own, and since we're just "playing" around—it might as well be Disneyland 🙏
...

Well, I suppose not everyone can effortlessly pull off that ``moves like a forum pro Jaeger'' style that hiddenpuma75 has mastered.
🎉

Joseph Bailey41 said:Grinja isn't actually a bacterium. 😂

It's a mite.

Honestly, who do you think you are, acting like some health inspector or a vaccine zealot? 😛 😵

Does that even change the point of my post or those awful photos?

Come on, just be honest—did you realize you had these mites living on your face, having little parties right there while you sleep? 😲

The thing is, about 90% of people act like this coronavirus is some sentient creature flying through the air, thinking everything they touch or even mention is dangerous, that it never sleeps, is indestructible, and that we should just blindly follow whatever the CDC or the government tells us.

I have literally heard people tell me exactly that.

They say if this wasn't EXTREMELY dangerous, all these MASSIVE measures wouldn't be happening.

And following that logic—

When someone is in power, they naturally assume they're much smarter than the average Joe who isn't.

I wanted to share this image just to make a point:

-If you’re feeling a bit lonely lately, don't sweat it. You actually have bacteria living right on your face like this 🙂 😲 And yes, I'm serious—we all carry these little guys around on our skin 😲

-Now, if you're feeling spooked and suddenly feel like you have epidemiological proof that you've been taken hostage—well, just head to your doctor or dermatologist every single day and report the threat to the police

-And if you happen to be in charge of the government, why not show us you actually care about our well-being?

-Go ahead and ban everyone from leaving their houses because these terrifying "alien" microbes might spread, and before you know it, we won't be pretty anymore and we'll all suffer a slow end as this bacteria slowly consumes us 🙂

==
To top it all off, these bacteria are downright perverted; they basically have a little rendezvous on your face every night while you sleep 😲

Look, this is what science says, not just some random theory from hiddenpuma75, so stay vigilant and declare a national pandemic!

http://thehorrormoviesblog.com/2020/...-live-on-face/

That's just disgusting, don't you think? 😲

medonaodmoru said:The hype surrounding this once-in-a-century apocalypse seems to have cooled off, so we can finally take a moment to recap this whole circus. Restrictions are being eased (read: scrapped) everywhere, including right here at home. Why should we be any different? The whole point was to make sure we all stayed in lockstep, and that’s pretty much what happened—assuming everyone else was smart enough to know what they were doing. There’s this attempt to frame everything as a logical, orderly progression of events, but let's be honest: it wasn't. Nothing about this has been normal or particularly intelligent, no matter how you slice it. In fact, they are lifting restrictions at a time when infection rates are actually higher than when they first put them in place. The government would honestly need a master con artist to convince us there's wisdom in these moves, though maybe just plain old stupidity would suffice.

From the perspective of those who were genuinely terrified by the pandemic (not saying whether that fear was justified or not), this is a total crime—nearly a mass slaughter carried out solely in the interest of corporate profits. On the flip side, for those who weren't scared of the virus but *were* scared of an economic meltdown, this sudden easing is basically the government admitting they were just winging it like children, and they finally got spooked by the idea that the damage might end up looking like three atomic bombs dropped on the US. If they're being lifted now, then these "measures" shouldn't have been implemented in the first place. The wolf ate the donkey, and now they want to move on and pretend it never happened. Because of all this, I give the authorities a big fat zero. From a safe six-foot distance, of course.

addx said:pretty much, so that

The peak of American compliance was our ability to be among the "best" at following these rules, as if we cared deeply about making sure this didn't turn into the complete farce it clearly became.

Articles have started popping up about people who passed away because surgeries and checkups were postponed due to these ridiculous mandates, and they need to wrap this all up quickly before the death toll completely nullifies any perceived benefit of these forced measures.

For healthy folks in major cities like NYC, things were mostly fine, but for the sick or those living in small rural towns, this was nothing short of harassment.

Honestly, after this global fiasco, I don't think anyone is going to trust these types of mandates again. Epidemiologists showed us exactly what happens when we hand the reins over to scientists, and imagine the chaos if we had handed them over to environmentalists and their war against climate change.

Sigmund (or rather, casultiger2, since we're talking spirituality 🙂), I'm really curious—are you going to label both addx and medu
as idiots, trolls, and conspiracy theorists? It seems like whenever people express the same thoughts I do, you've already decided exactly 😬who they are.

ironmarlin1 said:Ah, I feel like I stumbled upon that one somewhere back in my younger, more idealistic days... though, honestly, it’s quite refreshing to see this idea that the sheer terror of linear time actually finds its roots with Augustine. You know, even Wittgenstein's second major work kicked off by circling back to Augustine... albeit focusing on language instead. Of course, Augustine—true to form—got the whole thing spectacularly wrong. First with the concept of time, and then with the mechanics of language. We even have the sharp-witted Nietzsche weighing in on the Christian era, noting: "One must read any of the Christian agitators, such as St. Augustine, to understand and sense the kind of filth that has surfaced at the peak." (Nietzsche, The Antichrist)
The fact that he completely misread the situation really highlights the sort of decadence that began to seep into "civilization" once Christianity took hold. Now, there was one British philosopher who actually held some affection for Augustine's little ramblings about time. Then there’s another fellow who, calling him a "British philosopher" feels almost like an oxymoron, routinely misinterpreted everything he touched. I am, of course, referring to Russell. Honestly, I don't see why we wouldn't just categorize him under the history of activism rather than actual philosophy.
To be fair, one could make a similar argument about Zerzan, who spends his time writing while simultaneously handing out free vegan food on street corners and setting up video projections about animal slaughter, but well... c'est la vie. Don't go telling me that things aren't clichés.

I'm not quite sure which of Augustine's "time nonsense" theories you're referring to; could you walk me through your reasoning? 🤔

Here is a quick summary of a paper I found regarding Augustine and the concept of time.

(The underlining is mine!)

https://www.jstor.org/stable/example_link

In both scientific research and philosophical debates, space and time are usually treated as a package deal. While Augustine doesn't have a specific treatise dedicated solely to space, his views would likely be very similar to his famous discourse on time. To make sense of that discussion, the first part of this article provides a brief overview of the various ways space and time have been perceived. While Aristotle links time to motion (change) and Scholastic philosophy defines it as a mental construct, Augustine ties time to the very origin of matter—specifically, creation ex nihilo. For him, time begins with creation; outside of creation, time simply doesn't exist. But if time consists of indivisible moments of "now," how can we talk about different durations or even measure it? Aristotle connects time measurement to movement, whereas Augustine connects it to the soul—specifically, to memory. This leaves us with the big question: what *is* time? If time is motion, as Aristotle argued, then it makes sense that it can serve as its own measure. However, if we try to observe time itself, measurement becomes impossible because we can only measure "completed" time, which by definition is already gone. If we instead relate time to the soul and memory, measurement becomes possible. The impressions left by passing events in our memory allow us to compare them, giving us a way to gauge intervals. For Augustine, the past isn't "real" because it's gone, and the future isn't real because it hasn't happened yet; even the present, which seems to be the only thing that's truly real, effectively doesn't exist unless it is actively trying to avoid becoming the past. Consequently, for Augustine, time isn't a physical reality unless it exists within the soul as the memory of the past and the anticipation of the future. Time is essentially the stretching of the soul (distentio animi) between a past that no longer exists (but survives in memory) and a future that isn't real yet (but exists in our expectation).

casualtiger2 said:hiddenpuma75, we’re good.
You aren't some conspiracy theorist.
My point still stands—a lot of what gets peddled as "alternative" is actually dangerous.
Treating cancer with herbal tea and German Medicine, using religious icons for radiation protection, staring at the Sun for too long, "light diets," and endless other variations—not to mention just waiting around for some theological apocalypse to hit.

You didn't really answer my questions either.

Just how many extra lives would be worth sacrificing to save the economy?
Here’s something else you might have missed.

Bottom line: most Swiss people and I are pretty happy with how the government here has handled things—both on the health front and the economy.
Maybe the situation over in America is a different story entirely.

PS
Look, I have nothing against you (you’re actually kind of likable in your own way), it's just that reading your posts is such an uphill battle that I don't even bother anymore.
It feels like you're trying to link together ideas that just don't connect, but hey, I'm not going to argue about it.
If it makes you feel better, just consider yourself the winner of this debate (and all future ones)—and sorry if I stepped on your toes at any point.

See? But in order to convince you, I had to spend an entire hour typing away, essentially suffocating myself, you, and everyone else here. False accusations are dangerous business because they are so easy to hurl and incredibly difficult to take back.

You didn't really answer my questions, though.
How many more deaths would be acceptable to save the economy?

It's hard to put a price tag on human lives.
So, let me throw a counter-question your way, and then we can both just sit in silence.
The reality is that cars, alcohol, and tobacco cause far more deaths than a virus like COVID-19. Cars, booze, and cigarettes kill people steadily over years, and they'll keep doing it for years to come.

A pandemic might pop up once every century—or let's say once every decade—and last for about six months.

So, casualtiger2, wouldn't we actually save a massive amount of lives if we, say, banned night driving, or restricted or even outlawed the sale of alcohol and tobacco? 🤔

Yet, nobody ever thinks to suggest that, does anyone? 😉

If it makes you feel better, consider yourself the winner of this argument (and all future ones), and please forgive me if I offended you in any way.

There are no winners here. This was just a debate that inevitably transformed both of us—and maybe even the onlookers—through the sheer alchemy of words. 👍

Dragan said:It’s not worth wasting breath on conspiracy theorists, so I’ll keep this brief. Just wanted to make sure people know there are those of us who don't buy into their theories.
To be honest, I tend to skim through your posts, so I don't always follow your train of thought—sometimes I don't even realize you're actually addressing me.

4. Actually, you can just disregard everything I've said to you up until now. This right here is the key to clearing up our misunderstanding.

5. Now, if your definition of a conspiracy theorist is someone who DENIES THE MASSIVE NUMBER OF DEATHS IN HOSPITALS WORLDWIDE and claims it's all some orchestrated, planned conspiracy, a giant hoax, or a hellish scheme to enslave humanity, then yeah, we are on the same page.👍

6. THOSE people truly ARE conspiracy theorists.👍

7. My point, however, is that I don't believe this is some grand, pre-planned conspiracy theory. 😉 For me, what we are seeing is a messy, spontaneous chaos of ignorance—a situation fueled by pure fear, a mix of panic and paranoia, and essentially a COLLECTIVE ECONOMIC SUICIDE.

8. The crux of the matter for me is this: How do you actually diagnose someone's death? Was it *from* Corona, or was it *with* Corona?🤔

9. Look, in our neck of the woods, 21 people supposedly died from Corona.
I am not denying that they died!

What I am questioning is the diagnosis that they died SOLELY because of Corona, and exclusively because of Corona, and that anyone who comes into contact with this virus is destined to end up the same way.

10. Here is my main contention: Every single one of them was an older individual who already struggled with two or more underlying health conditions.

11. NO ONE UNDER 50 WHO WAS OTHERWISE HEALTHY HAS DIED FROM CORONA HERE ,so nobody is "suffocating" quite like Sigmund warns us about.

12. So, Dragan, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I’m simply thinking about this the same way those experts I mentioned earlier do.

1) If I’m following your logic correctly, you’ve basically decided that I’m just some Corona conspiracy theorist.🤔 😲

2) It seems to me that your definition of a conspiracy theorist is anyone who dares to question the official narrative.
Now, questioning things doesn't make someone a conspiracy theorist, but I get the feeling that in your book, it does!

3. I need you to be crystal clear with me: do you honestly believe that the opinions of these 18 experts regarding Corona are nothing more than a conspiracy theory? (Check out the two links below)

Because if they are, then I'm in good company, I'll gladly accept the label, and we can just end this conversation right here...

The real issue at hand is this:

You haven't actually sat down to read what these people are saying; instead, you're just treating your own preconceived notions as absolute facts. Come on, just admit you haven't even looked at this list or watched those two videos by Dr. Markovski—that brilliant expert whom Sigmund keeps talking about with such colorful language. 😲

====
STATEMENTS FROM 18 TOP EXPERTS REGARDING CORONA AND THE CURRENT SITUATION !

I want to make sure my stance on this whole spirituality thing comes through clearly

1. First off, thanks for such an extensive and educational response. 👍

2. You should probably read my posts—not because they belong to me, per se, but because they mostly consist of quotes and insights from experts who happen to disagree with you, Sigmund, Volver, Joe, and the rest of the official establishment.

3. I am firmly, confidently, and logically rejecting your accusation that I am a conspiracy theorist.

4. It’s clearly just a misunderstanding; you’re projecting a label onto me that I simply don't fit, nor have I ever.

5. I assume your definition of a conspiracy theorist involves people who deny obvious facts.

For example... conspiracy theorists believe people never went to the moon, that the Earth is flat, or that Americans orchestrated the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
and so on.

6. There is also a specific breed of modern conspiracy theory where, by some miracle, every terrorist attack in recent years is blamed on some elaborate staged production or acting. 😲

7. Honestly, I get those kinds of emails from a friend of mine every single time a major crime occurs. 😵

8. Let me be clear: I have zero interest in conspiracy theories. I've never gone down those rabbit holes, and frankly, it feels like a waste of time. I view guys like Icke and his ilk as charlatans. While there might be a grain of truth buried somewhere in the jungle of his writings, I really have no interest in sweeping generalizations and wild conspiracies.
His success and popularity are certainly staggering, though.

9. Therefore, your claim that I’m a conspiracy theorist is false and lacks any real substance.

I’ll dive into your specific accusation regarding Corona more deeply below.

I just need to vent for a second about how my spiritual, gentle, and deeply affectionate colleague, Dragan, decided to ambush me with two stones and make a quick getaway 😲

First, he pelted me with a stone for being a "dangerous guy," and the second one was basically a penalty because he called me out for being a conspiracy theorist 😲

You know, someone once wisely noted that it takes about ten times more time and space to debunk a lie than it does to tell it.

Well, I gave Dragan a proper response to defend myself against his Stalinist accusation of being a conspiracy theorist here, but now he’s gone completely silent, and I’m just sitting here waiting to see if he’s going to come at me with a third stone from his hiding spot

So, Dragan, have I successfully cleared my name regarding your accusation that I'm a conspiracy theorist
or not?

If you actually read my defense, let me know what the verdict is

Death toll in Sweden during March

In March 2019, there were 7,570 deaths.

In March 2020, that number rose to 8,013.

==

Wait a second!
John, Sigmund, and Dragan are all acting like this extra 500 deaths compared to last year is some massive headline.

==
Then bluemason3 drops the 2018 data for Sweden.

Back in March 2018, Sweden actually saw 9,210 deaths. ☕

bluemason3 said:I think it's pretty obvious that these numbers are just illustrative rather than concrete data points. It also seems glaringly clear where the consensus lies—whether you're looking at public discourse, talking to people one-on-one, or examining both academic research and everyday medical practice.
If you've got data that contradicts me, I'm more than happy to change my mind.

It doesn't even really matter. Truth isn't decided by a popular vote, and at the end of the day, it's always the moderators, the admins, or the politicians calling all the shots anyway.

Look, I know that doesn't exactly define the truth. But for someone like me—who isn't an expert tracking this stuff with the same rigor as actual scientists—I figure probability comes down to simple math. To me, following the numbers just seems like the most practical way to act.

And that's exactly the strategy they decided to go with.
It’s either one way or the other.
It’s pretty obvious that different countries are seeing wildly different results and running completely different strategies.

It’s pretty clear that countries with a stricter approach are outperforming those taking a more relaxed route. We're still waiting on the final results from the Swedish experiment, though you have to account for their culture of discipline, regardless of what mandates are actually in place.

Scientists who rely on government funding simply can't—and shouldn't—risk their livelihoods by going against the grain of media narratives and public opinion.

The government doesn't just cut direct checks to scientists. There are various agencies involved in routing that money, so it’s not like Andrej Plenković is calling the shots on individual grants. Funding is actually pretty diverse; you have public tax dollars flowing through multiple channels at different levels, plus there's private money coming from both industry players and philanthropic organizations. Most of this funding—public and private alike—is distributed via peer-review committees. These panels consist of fellow scientists who evaluate projects based on established criteria, essentially picking the best of the best from the pool of applicants.
There are plenty of ways to ensure things stay firmly under government control, at least in Western democracies.
It's not like all the money comes from the government, either. You can't overlook the impact of EU funds, though those sources tend to be pretty faceless and buried under layers of bureaucracy.

Some things are heavily politicized—for instance, it’s pretty much impossible to break into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences unless you play ball with the right people (look at what happened with Djikić). But this isn't quite like that, at least from what I can see. Out of all the political maneuvering and power plays happening within the academy, I haven't heard anyone pick on that specific part. Of course, my sample size is small, but so far, so good.

They won't even touch the minor controversies, yet look at what Dr. Sheldrake claims in his book Science delusion .
He basically says most of his scientist friends hold one opinion in private and a completely different one when they're performing "officially."

The man is talking about door handles. If he were a serious scientist, he’d question his own theories after a hundred independent researchers failed to replicate his results (just a side note: nobody should be afraid to tackle certain topics, by the way).
I was actually on his side until this. Now, if he keeps ignoring the data, he's just following in Emotov's footsteps with this pseudoscience stuff. He built a career on being an alternative figure, which means he probably can't go back to the mainstream academy anyway. He can't afford to be objective or impartial and toss out his ideas when the results don't line up; a real academic could just adapt and move on to new projects. But he doesn't have that luxury. He’s stuck, and it feels inevitable that he'll sink deeper into pseudoscience as his whole house of cards falls apart.

But you can't deny the media hype and the constant bombardment of fear-mongering imagery.

I wouldn't know. I don't follow them. I haven't turned on the TV in months, haven't bought a newspaper in years, and I barely even click on news sites lately.😁

Well, let’s find some common ground here, because I actually do the exact same thing. 👍

ps. It's getting late and I'm hitting a wall. There'll be plenty of days left to keep this discussion going.

I have even more statements right here, just so you know I'm not cluttering things up too much