The Musings of Jaime David

The Musings of Jaime David
The Musings of Jaime David
@jaimedavid.blog@jaimedavid.blog

The writings of some random dude on the internet

1,120 posts
1 follower

Tag: Humanism

  • Independence?

    Independence?

    Today is the 4th of July,

    A.k.a Independence Day.

    It is America’s birthday;

    The day that the colonies declared independence from Great Britain.

    At least, that’s what most people think.

    The day Congress voted for independence was July 2nd

    And the day the Declaration of Independence was signed was August 2nd.

    However, the document itself is dated July 4th.

    What is the true day of America’s independence?

    I would say when the vote was made should be that day.

    Whatever the case, July 4th is considered “Independence Day.”

    For the longest time, it was a day of great celebration for me.

    But recently, with police brutality, systemic racism, and a pandemic running rampant,

    And with an inept administration ill-equipped to come up with solutions,

    It really leaves one feeling very disillusioned.

    With millions homeless, uninsured, and starving,

    And with thousands more being treated like second-class citizens,

    Whether they’re naturalized citizens, asylees, refugees, or immigrants,

    It leaves one to wonder if Americans really have independence.

    With millions of people dependent on corporations and the government,

    While others have millions or billions of dollars to spend,

    There’s a real discrepancy in this broken country.

    It’s sad to see.

    It saddens me especially because I’m a mixed minority.

    I have a constant fear of being shot by the police,

    Or being deported because I look like “an illegal.”

    All of that and more make me very fearful.

    So far, I haven’t had to deal with racism and prejudice,

    But I fear, in the future, racism and bigotry will become more severe.

    I fear people will become more open about their hatred towards minorities.

    I fear for my friends, my family, and my loved ones.

    I fear for everyone who’s Asian, black, Latinx, or mixed.

    I also fear for what could happen to me.

    And that leaves me to wonder, is there really independence?

    Is there really independence in this country

    If so many people have to live in constant fear of discrimination, hate, and bigotry?

    I’d say no.

    I’d say we have a long way to go.

    Who knows?

    Maybe racism, sexism, bigotry, and hatred will never go away.

    Maybe they will always be here to stay.

    I hope that’s not the case.

    I hope that one day, we can live in a world free from hate.

    Maybe that will happen. Maybe it won’t.

    All I do know is, it all starts at the individual level.

    I believe that most people are capable of change.

    I believe that most people can change for the better.

    How do they get there?

    I don’t know for sure.

    What I do know is, I want to try to understand people.

    I want to understand why people are the way they are.

    I want to understand why people act the way they do,

    Say the things they do,

    And think the way they do.

    I want to try to understand people.

    By understanding people, meaningful solutions can be reached.

  • Pacifism

    Pacifism

    It hurts a lot inside us

    When we see so much violence.

    Peace is what we want most,

    But that cannot happen when there exists systemic oppression.

    We don’t want people hurt, to suffer or die.

    We don’t want people to lose their lives.

    We value human life. We see the good and potential that people have inside.

    We want people to be free, be happy, and be caring.

    We want people to live life without fear of being victims of cruelty.

    We want to live in a world where no one hurts one another and where we all treat each other like sisters and brothers.

    We’d all care for each other. We’d all be like family.

    How will we get there? I have no idea.

    Are there peaceful solutions? I hope that there are.

    In fact, I believe that there are.

    One thing’s for sure; I am a pacifist.

    I’m against using violence.

    I don’t want to hurt others.

    I care a lot about people.

    Hurting them, to me, is evil.

  • Death

    Death

    Death is a part of life.

    It causes us great strife.

    It takes away our loved ones

    And leaves us all alone.

    It affects us all differently,

    For we have different ways that we grieve,

    But I know that I personally believe

    That death is the end; the end of everything.

    Once someone’s gone, they’re gone for good.

    Maybe there’s a God and an afterlife. Who knows?

    All I do know is that I will always try

    To bring happiness and joy to the people in my life.

    I will try to make the world great in the best way that I can

    By using the gifts and talents that make me who I am.

    I may not be perfect; not in the slightest

    But I strive to be a light; a light that shines brightest

    When I’m surrounded by those who are caring and supportive.

    I don’t like to see people in pain,

    Either physically or emotionally.

    Their pain is something that I want to take away,

    But I know I can’t do that,

    For I’m not superhuman.

    I’m only a man; a man with a plan;

    A plan to see this world be the best world that it can.

    How it will be done, I honestly don’t know.

    What I do know is that I’ll be a light that glows.

    I care about people; always have and always will.

    That’ll never change; at least, I don’t think it will.

    I strive to be better; to be different.

    I want to learn from my own failures, shortcomings, and mistakes.

    I want to be someone that people would want to meet.

    I want to be someone that people could appreciate.

    Even though I don’t expect anything in return,

    I will do anything I can to bring joy to this world,

    So that if I die tomorrow, I’ll be proud of all I’ve done.

    I don’t know what will happen to me when I die.

    All I know is, I’m going to appreciate life and just take things one day at a time.

  • The Dome

    The Dome

    Background

    I initially wrote this poem in hopes to possibly have it included in a book about climate relocation. It unfortunately wasn’t accepted, so I’m sharing it on here!

    Before I get to the poem itself, let me tell you about the background of what inspired and led me to write the poem in the first place, for the story is a pretty interesting one. It all started about a month ago. I wss browsing YouTube and decided to watch a video from YouTube user DarkDocs titled “Is America’s Own Chernobyl Sitting In The Middle of the Ocean.”

    In the video, he describes the history of the Runit Dome and the effects it could have on the environment today.

    After the video was over, I watched in the suggestions tab titled “This Concrete Dome Holds A Leaking Toxic Timebomb | Foriegn Correspondent.”

    It was a video by ABC News In-depth. In the video, it talks about the history of the Runit Dome and how it is affecting the Marshallese people presently. One of the people who was mentioned in the video was Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, a poet from the Marshall Islands. In 2014, she had read a poem for her daughter in front of the UN for the Climate Summit. I thought her poem was very inspiring, so I wanted to follow her on social media to check out more of her work. I followed her on Facebook and Twitter. On her Twitter, I saw that she had shared an advertisement for a book that two climate scientists were working on getting published. The book would be a collection of works ranging from scientific articles to poems. I decided to submit a poem. I had sent a short excerpt of it to them. They said they liked it and that I should hear back a month later if my poem will be accepted or not. Fast forward to today, and I found out my poem was not accepted. However, they said they enjoyed the excerpt that I had sent to them, and that there were a lot of submissions to choose from. I wish the both of them good luck in getting the book published, and without further ado, here is the full poem that I had wrote!

    The Poem

    Bikini Atoll;

    They were told

    The US were protectors

    Of hope

    And of freedom.

    Instead, they were relo-

    -cated from their homes

    While their atolls

    Were bombarded with radiation,

    Which had took a toll

    On them and their souls,

    And the remains of it all

    Were buried underneath a dome

    That is called “The Tomb.”

    How ironic it’s name is, so,

    Because the Runit Dome

    Has the potential

    To become their own tombs.

    With sea level rising,

    It’s becoming a crisis

    That if the radiation finds its

    Way out, it could

    Completely poison

    The entire Earth’s oceans,

    And this is because of the

    Changing Earth’s climate!

    Is there any hope for us to survive this

    Disastrous threat that could possibly annihilate us?

    I’d say there is, but we need to realize this:

    For us to survive it,

    We all need to rise up and

    Take a stand for what’s right, which

    Is saving the entire planet

    From total destruction.

    It may sound bleak; it may sound alarmist,

    But I believe we all can grow and thrive despite this!

    That is why I, a mere man who writes this,

    An artist with a creative mind that is

    Concerned about the state of the world and this climactic climate crisis,

    Had decided to sit down and take the time to write this.

    I wrote this poem

    Because I care about my home.

    I care about the loved ones that I call my own.

    I wrote this for my friends; my family, too!

    I wrote this for their friends, and their families, too!

    I wrote this for everyone; everyone that’s in the room;

    The room that is so big and so round and so blue;

    The room that has oceans that spans millions of miles;

    The room that has a diversity of creatures both on land and in the sea;

    The room that has been around for billions of years;

    The room that houses a species that has accomplished many great feats, but has also caused a myriad of tragedies that led countless people to defeat;

    The room that I’m proud to call planet Earth.

    I was not asked to be born on this Earth,

    But it is my place; the place of my birth.

    It sorta just happened; one day I was conceived.

    I grew to a fetus, then a baby, and then eventually an adult human being.

    It was a slow process; just like humanity’s growth on this Earth for thousands of years.

    We started out in caves, and eventually made great things.

    Along the way, we also had created

    Devastating weapons that can harm us and hurt us in many ways.

    The same goes with climate change; it’s mostly man-made.

    It is a mess that we ourselves had made.

    The consequences are dire; the Earth is on fire.

    But if we take a stand now, I believe we’ll survive this!

    The Earth is our home; it is our dome.

    It is the one thing that should come above all!

    Just as the dome

    Located in the Enewetak Atoll

    Has the potential

    To destroy us all,

    We too have the potential;

    The potential to be saviors

    For not just the here and now,

    But for future generations.

    That is why I had wrote this poem.

    So if you see this message, please heed the urgency

    To do something about this climactic climate emergency

    That could lead to insurgency

    Of disastrous natural convergency

    That could inadvertently lead

    To extreme diathermancy

    And create great divergency.

    We must fight this looming threat, and we must do so with great fervency,

    For it is this Earth that we love with great ardency!

    We must stand up and fight, and must do so without errancy.

    We must not treat this threat as a mere nonemergency.

    We must respect this planet with great amounts of conservancy,

    And clean up this world with great levels of detergency.

    This our home; the home that we were grown.

    This Earth is our dome, and this is its poem!

  • Welcome! — The Interfaith Intrepid

    Welcome! — The Interfaith Intrepid

    Hi! Welcome to “The Interfaith Intrepid!” On this blog site, we will post a variety of posts, from news to politics to reviews, what have you! There will be no set schedule on here. We’ll just post whenever possible. In subsequent blog posts, I, and my other fellow contributors, will be introducing ourselves on here. […]

    Welcome! — The Interfaith Intrepid
  • Sanders A Warhawk? — The Interfaith Intrepid

    Sanders A Warhawk? — The Interfaith Intrepid

    According to an article from “World Socialist Web Site” https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/02/14/sand-f14.html , Bernie Sanders had told the New York Times in an interview that he would “consider military force to pre-empt an Iranian or North Korean nuclear or missile test.” The article goes on further to say that Bernie would also be willing to use “military […]

    Sanders A Warhawk? — The Interfaith Intrepid
  • “Humanitarian Intervention” Is An Oxymoron — The Interfaith Intrepid

    “Humanitarian Intervention” Is An Oxymoron — The Interfaith Intrepid

    There is no such thing as “humanitarian intervention.” It’s an oxymoron, and a blatant one if one were to take the time to ponder it’s meaning, the usage, and the context of the phrase. Interventions of ANY kind are not humanitarian ventures; not in the slightest. Lives are still lost, people get uprooted from their […]

    “Humanitarian Intervention” Is An Oxymoron — The Interfaith Intrepid
  • Bridges and Walls

    Bridges and Walls

    If you raise up a bridge, you build a wall.

    If you tear down a wall, you create a bridge.

    Why should we should we exclude some instead of include all?

    Why should we divide ourselves and act cold like the fridge?

    It is time we stop looking at each other like we’re not “the others”

    And start realizing that we should start to love one another.

    We’re all humans.

    We are one family.

    We’ve lived on this planet for many generations.

    Sure, our ancestors may have caused much division;

    Division that exists to this very day.

    However, there is one vision; one vision I envision,

    And that vision is an end to all division.

    I believe it’s possible. It’s very feasible.

    The first step to make it achievable is to simply care for other people.

    That’s all you need to do to start bringing a positive impact to the world.

  • My Journey to Atheism

    My Journey to Atheism

    I’d like to tell you the story of how I became an atheist. It’s kind of a long one, so strap in for the ride.

    My story starts when I was a kid. I was born and raised Catholic. I received all of the sacraments up to and including Confirmation. I was a devout Catholic. I believed in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I prayed everyday, both out loud and to myself. I went to Catholic school from grade school all the way to high school. I was pretty religious. My family and I weren’t big on going to church, however. We preferred to practice our faith at home amongst ourselves. We also didn’t believe everything that the Bible, the Pope, and Catholicism told us. Besides that, we all had a strong belief in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit; especially me.

    I would worry everyday about the things I said or did. I also worried about the things my friends and family said and did. I was worried that if my friends, family, or I had said or did things that God did not approve of, we would be sent to Hell. Hell scared me a lot. I was terrified of it. The thought of being tortured in a place of fire and brimstone for all eternity would give me nightmares as a child. Even now, as an atheist, I still occasionally fear the possibility that Hell is real and that I would be sent to it.

    That’s how things were for most of my life; that is, until I was about to start senior year of high school. It was the summer between junior year and senior year. Junior year had just ended, and senior year was well on its way. I was excited, because that meant I was about to graduate, become an adult, and head off to college in another year! One day, sometime around the beginning of July of 2013, a friend of mine had showed me a video by the YouTuber “The Amazing Atheist.” I had vaguely heard of him before my friend had showed me the video, but this was the first time I had ever seen a video by “The Amazing Atheist” for myself. Immediately, I felt drawn to his personality. His cynical personality, abrasive humor, and straightforward bluntness had intrigued me. I wanted to watch more of his videos. As soon as I had gone home, I immediately searched up Amazing Atheist’s YouTube channel. From there, I had spent the night watching a bunch of Amazing Atheist videos. Every video by Amazing Atheist that I had watched, my perception of religion started to change. I started to doubt my faith more and more. When it was time for me to go to sleep, my mind had felt as though it had a lot of knowledge dropped onto it at once! It was intense. I felt nervous and uneasy going to sleep that night. I had a fear that God saw what I did, and that I would be severely punished for my transgressions. I fervently prayed that night to make sure that I would not go to Hell for my actions, and that I was just starting to have a lot of doubts about my belief in Him. I had told God that no matter what happened, I would always try to be a good person, and that I wanted to be judged by my character, and not my belief in Him.

    The next morning, after a good night’s sleep, I had felt more at ease. With a clearer mind, I decided to look up evidence to prove God’s existence. However, I did not want to use religious sources. All I found, however, were Bible quotes, faith websites, religious blogs, etc. I scoured the Internet far and wide to find evidence of God. I wanted to find something; anything. I wanted to find something that could give me reason to believe in God. I was not ready to let my faith go; not yet. I wanted to be absolutely sure that I did everything I could to prove to myself that there was indeed a God. After hours of researching, I came up with nothing. It was at that point that I realized that God may not be real, and that religion was man-made. Even though there was no way to prove or disprove God’s existence, from what I have seen so far, there was no point in believing in a God at all if there was no definitive way to prove or disprove His existence. It was at that point I had officially become an atheist.

    Later on that day, and in the next couple of weeks, I had started to watch a couple of atheist YouTubers other than just the Amazing Atheist. The next atheist YouTuber I had discovered after Amazing Atheist was CultofDusty. He was also pretty funny. Soon after discovering him, I had found Secular Talk, Jaclyn Glenn, and Thunderf00t, just to name a few. I had listened to all of their stories and videos regarding atheism, politics, the world, etc. They had so many interesting stories and perspectives that I had found informative and relatable. My entire belief system, worldview, personality, and philosophy were starting to change. No longer did I feel closed-minded and sheltered. I now was discovering that there was a vast world that was in my grasp. There were so many people, places, things, events, and issues going on in the world, that the world did not revolve around me. Nothing revolved around me, nor any one individual, for that matter. There were problems bigger than any one of us combined. In order to tackle them, we, as people, had to work together. We couldn’t wait for God to fix these problems. We had to take action and do it ourselves! In fact, we were the ones who created our own problems; not God. God wasn’t responsible for any of the things that we did. It didn’t make any sense for God to have been. Why would God give us free will, only to know ahead of time that our fates were sealed the moment He created us, and that we were just on borrowed time before we were judged. If we truly had free will, there would have to be situations that God Himself could not predict. However, if God is omniscient, He should know everything, and should not be surprised by any of the choices we make in life, and if He is surprised, that means that He isn’t omniscient. And that’s how the thoughts in my mind went for other aspects of God, as well, such as His omnipotence, his benevolence, and his omnipresence. The more rigorously I thought about His characteristics, the harder it was for me to believe that God was real. After that, I had found it hard for me to believe any of the other things that were presented in the Bible. From there, everything came down like a house of cards.

    It has now been over 6 and a half years since I had stopped believing in religion, and it was one of the most liberating things I had ever done! No longer did I feel the need to worry about someone constantly judging me and watching me. I was now able to be who I truly wanted to be. In hindsight, religion, to me, felt like a restraint; a hindrance. It felt like a way to control me through the use of fear; through the use of Hell. Looking back, Hell was used as a concept to scare young kids into believing religion unquestionably, or else there would be consequences for our actions. It was indoctrination, and it was very manipulative. In my opinion, religion should not be introduced to children. They do not have the faculties to understand anything about their religion. All they know is what they are told from their parents, their schools, their churches, etc. If you want to teach religion to your children, at least wait until they become a teenager, so that way, they would have experienced the world for themselves and seen what it was like. To introduce a scary concept like Hell to young children has the potential to traumatize children and scar them for life. I know that for me, personally, I still find myself to occasionally dread the possibility of Hell, even though it has been years since I have become an atheist. That is from the constant drilling into my mind the vivid depictions of Hell, and the dire consequences that would result if one were to go to Hell. It was all of that BS being shoved down my throat as a young child that causes me to still fear Hell, even as an atheist, and I don’t think that fear will ever go away completely. It will always be there, somewhere in the far reaches of my mind, occasionally popping up out of the blue. Regardless, I feel like I have now found my truest self, and I don’t think I would have if I was still a believer. As an atheist, I had found that I had become more empathetic. I can empathize and understand people better, and I find myself treating others with care and kindness. I don’t think I would have reached the level of empathy that I have for others if I was still religious. I am more open-minded, and I can find myself to relate to people of a variety of different backgrounds, including those who are believers! For me, it does not matter if a person is religious or not. To me, what matters most is whether a person is kind or not. That’s what matters most. If a person is kind and caring, then I have no problem with them whatsoever, even if they may have religious beliefs. I personally don’t find it worth it to get into religious arguments and debates with people. If people want to learn about atheism, they will do it on their own accord, just like I did. No one forced atheism onto me. I wanted to learn more about it. By doing so, I started to question and doubt my faith, and eventually became a full-fledged atheist. I did it all on my own, and in hindsight, it was the best decision of my life. I have no regrets for becoming a skeptic.

  • Thoughts on the Coronavirus

    Thoughts on the Coronavirus

    I’d like to share some quick thoughts on the coronavirus; mainly the racist rhetoric surrounding the virus. I’ve heard quite a few people, both online and in real life, say that people should “stay away from Asians” and whatnot. I would like to debunk this BS right now and say this: “staying away” from Asians won’t do anything. Not now. The disease has spread outside of China, so now, it is affecting more than just Asians. If people were to apply the “staying away from Asians” logic to other groups, they’d essentially be advocating to stay away from everyone! They’d be advocating for people to just stay indoors all day and not go outside at all. There would be no going to work, no going to school, no going to the store. None of that! Just lock your doors and stay home indefinitely. That sounds ridiculous as heck! Just because the coronavirus is something to be feared does not mean people should put their lives on hold simply because it is a threat. There will always be threats and dangers that this world will face regardless of what we do. If we want to truly experience life and live life to the fullest, we have to take risks and chances, even if that may mean it could be our time to go at any moment. We cannot control when or how we will die. If it’s our time to go, it’s our time to go. We cannot control that. All we can do is hope for the best, and try to live life to the fullest, and live it without regrets!