The American Muslim Millennials (Technology vs. Religion)

Millennials are the least religious human generation since the days of Adam and Eve. According to a Pew Research report in 2014, it seems that one of every three people on earth of this generation prefers not to affiliate with any faith. Only 10% of them are still looking for the universal truth. 

However, other sociologists think that this generation does not give up their spiritual feelings but tend to reject the Conventional approach (Robert Putnam and David Campbell). The study of 100 urban Millennials has shown that they are not “the spiritual consumers of their parents’ generation, rather they are seeking both a deep spiritual experience and a community experience, each of which provides them with meaning in their lives, and is meaningless without the other.” Hence, they are actively looking for certain level of creed under which they can not lead a meaningful life (The Embodied Spirituality of the Post-Boomer Generations).  

Who are the Millennials? Choose your own adventure.

• This generation might be considered a the "Generation of the Internet". They are in their early adulthood at the moment (18-34 years of age now in 2015). 
• Almost all of them do not remember well how was the life before the internet
• They do not acknowledge the "American Dream" anymore. They were all in their teen years when the Twin Towers went down. They lived through the greatest financial crisis in 2008 and they do not trust their parents' stories about the importance of having a system to live by.

Millennials believe in value-led governments, sustainable organizations, and quickly measurable results. They are more individualistic than generation X, Y or their parents. You can see them looking into their smart phones almost everywhere. Try to ride on the metro and look around for any face to smile to. Almost none !!! 

What kind of social life will exist 10 years from now? Can you greet your neighbours? 

It 2015, it is much easier to send a txt message to a younger fellow than calling her/him or meet face to face. Virtual interconnectivity offers more confort to our younger fellows and kids. They prefers sending a quick email without any greetings or formality than coming to shake a hand and show a confident smile. They might prefer to donate via paypal to a stranger than offering a meal to a next door neighbor.  

Kathleen Shaputis, a prominent American sociologist, prefers another title for this generation: The Boomerang generation or the Peter Pan generation because they want to delay growing up as much as they can. They like to live longer with their parents as well instead of jumping out as soon as possible as with Generation X and generation Y.

So? What does it mean?

It means a lot. How can we keep a strong communications channel with our future generations? How to harness the power of technology to keep close to them and motivate them to maintain a good level of engagement in order to keep the humane community experience alive in front of their eyes?

The Importance of interfaith Dialogue in North America

The United States of America was formed as a nation to be different from the predominantly European countries from which its founders came. One principle of the United States was to not have a state creed per se, but rather a plurality of creeds and freedom to choose whatever creed one chooses. Thanks to the freedom of creed in America, there are a number of creeds and philosophical practices throughout the U.S. There is solid interfaith dialogue in many bigger cities and metropolitan areas, but some areas can use better interrelations. Even for the areas with better inter faith relations, there is always room for improvement.

First, a breakdown of the creeds in America. Christianity, or Christian denominations, are the most prevalent faith in each and every state. (For example, in the South, Baptism is most popular; the Catholic church on the coasts; and Mormonism in Utah and surrounding regions). Things start to get more interesting when talking about the second most popular creed. Per the Washington Post, Islam is America's largest non-Christian-- or overall, second largest-- creed with it being the second biggest faith in 20 states. Judaism is the second largest creed in 15 states. Buddhism is the largest non-Christian creed in 13, primarily western, states.


West of Canada was built similarly. Quebec is an exception because it was an extension of the European Church state then it becomes a striking example of the French secularist state that rejected all aspects of religions (Except some). Yet, Quebec kept moving steadily towards a military secularist system in which the state started dictating what people can think of or believe in during the past few years. Although the majority of USA and Canada citizens are Christian in some form, other religious groups are growing. For example, in 2011, it was estimated that the amount of Muslims in the United States would double by 2030 (similar Canadian statistics are present).

It is ideal to have Muslims who attend mosques and members of these burgeoning faiths integrate in a predominantly Christian society. Many Christians would be surprised to see how much Islam has in common with traditional Christianity. Imagine having a nation built on inter faith principles. How natural and humane will that be?

Probably the best way to promote inter-faith is by simply being open-minded and discussing creeds without imposing it upon others. Don't fear sharing your own beliefs, and why you feel as you do. Meanwhile, while you can give your own interpretation of the writings of your domination, do not force them upon others. Everyone will understand a religious text differently, hence the many different sects within any given creed.

Christianity, on the one hand, has a much richer set of interpretations that are somehow distant from the original text. Islam is a great example of a creed that has a limited set of interpretations that are all based on the original preserved text (verbatim). A lot of efforts has been done in USA and Canada to offer the original text of Islam without much interpretations. After all, people need to know the original text that Allah (GOD) has revealed without the human understanding of the sacred text.

Remember that just like different creeds or sects have their own interpretations of scripture, so do specific individuals. Be aware of different methods in which you can apply inter-faith dialogue; a popular one is called SR, or scriptural reasoning.

Ultimately, inter-faith relations are imperative to have because they more concretely make you faithful, and they allow you to reconcile the differences between different creeds. You will likely find that the fundamental texts of your creed aren't that different from those of the other neighbors, colleagues, acquaintances or friends.

Many in this day and age will get married to a person of another creed. In fact, Fox News found in July 2010 through a representative sample of 2,500 individuals that 42% of marriages in the United States are of an inter faith variety. Interestingly enough, Jews are most likely to marry out of faith, while Mormons are least likely. Muslims are in between. Couples in inter-faith marriages are apparently less happy than those in same-faith marriages, which is evidenced by a higher divorce rate. Inter-faith marriages are much more common amongst older people, and many spouses will actually convert to their partner's creed over a period of time. Perhaps most promising in terms of inter faith relations, marrying a person of a different creed will cause you to feel more positively about that creed over time. Based on my personal experience, I have seen hundreds of Muslims in Montreal marrying to non Muslim ladies. I have witnessed marriages between Muslim ladies as well and non Muslim fellows but a small minority due to restrictions of marriage to non Muslims.

It should also be mentioned that inter-faith measures incorporate all philosophies, not just religions. So, if one has a spiritual or humanistic philosophy that doesn't traditionally fall into the definition of a religion, their beliefs should still be recognized and respected in interfaith dialogue. Examples of secular philosophies include practices such as humanism.

Inter-faith dialogue has been around for many centuries, but it still has plenty of room to grow. All religions have fanatics who believe that those of other faiths should be terminated (physically or socially) because they don't hold the same faith is evidence of such. Don't think that the problem of poor inter-faith relations is due to any one creed, however; all of us need to improve.

I have learned in Montreal that it is worth it to put the time and efforts to actually become familiar with other religious and philosophical texts, and seek to meet people who have a different value system or a different belief. Our minds and tolerance will grow exponentially.

Being open to learning and exchanging will add value to one's belief system and enhance our understanding of the purpose of life, what will come after life, how humans need to treat each other, where to seek knowledge, how to seek knowledge, and how to lead a civilized talk with our human fellows.

The more open you are, the better in terms of interfaith relations. After all, what's the worst thing that can happen from engaging in inter faith dialogue and research? You don't agree with what you're presented? The pros far outweigh the cons.

Be open and good luck!

   

Will oil prices go beyond $100 again?

OPEC promised to stabilize supply during the second half of 2015 and blame the sharp decline to increased production from non-OPEC members. OPEC has been producing around 30 million barrel per day for almost a decade. 

Lately USA is producing shale oil and non open members are competing for a 20% share of the global market. Many European countries are consuming less and less oil because of natural gas consumption or because of more efficient combustible engines. 

The concern is not about oil prices. The world major problem now is the domino effect that is triggered whenever oil prices fall or rise suddenly. For example, the CAD/USA rate has been in a free fall since then. The following graph shows the trend. The Central Bank of Canada expected the worse hit of lower oil prices on the economy during the second half of 2015. Yet, the explicit impact on income during the last quarter of 2014 was clear especially in Alberta and West Canada. The bank maintains the overnight rate at its previous target of 0.75% in its press release published last week (March 4th, 2015). Bank of Canada is still trying to avoid dealing with the main issues (employment, social funding, stimulus...) because of conservative policies. How can any central banker passes a message that

financial stability risks are evolving as expected in January

!!!!

What is a reasonable oil barrel price? 

This is the break down of an crude barrel. The majority of the output is in jet fuel and gasoline for our cars. An easier comparison is to link the crude price to the gas prices in the market because everybody can see those numbers every day.

One can look at the following chart and implies a reasonable factor between crude price and gas prices.

A quick ratio can be around 25. Every barrel of oil was costing around 20-25 gallons of gas in US gas stations. The gas prices are much more stable than oil prices and hence when the barrel price is way above 25 times the gallon of gas, it should ring some bells. When it falls way below the price of 20 gallons of gas, it means the market is not left to its equilibrium. There are many causes for this concern:

1. Higher demand for gas (summer months)
2. Higher supply for oil (Saudi is not happy with Iran)
3. Higher pressure from USA or China for cheaper oil during crisis times 
4. Unexpected market adjustments (short terms only). 

House of Debt

The book is deep and offering an alternative point of view that is of prime importance to understand the deep depression cycle of the economy. 

 

Dr. Asad Zaman wrote:

Ben Bernanke has called explaining the Great Depression (GD) the “Holy Grail” of Macroeconomics. In the course of providing a convincing and surprising explanation of both GD and the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007-8, Mian & Sufi (2014) remark nonchalantly that Keynes did not have access to the wealth of data that is now available. “House of Debt” is a tour-de-force which succeeds in solving a problem which eminent economists like Keynes, Friedman, and many others failed to do. Not only does the book explain the root causes of the GFC, but it also shows how the continuing economic problems created by it can be resolved. In addition, Mian and Sufi suggest radical changes that need to be made to avoid such crises in the future. Even though the authors do not mention the Islamic angle, the main message of the book resonates strongly with Islamic ideas about finance. In particular, replacing debt and interest with equity based contracts is the key to avoiding recurrent financial crises in a capitalist system. In this review, we make some of these connections explicit. 

Mian and Sufi have written a thriller; a detective story in which we pursue many false leads, rejected by empirical evidence, before identifying the culprit (interest based debt) by putting together a variety of clues. This review offers a spoiler: a summary of the main arguments. The most exciting part, which is the strong empirical evidence offered in support of all of the assertions, is omitted from this brief summary. Although Mian and Sufi modestly attribute their success to the data, this data was available to all. Their tremendous contribution lies in focussing on the relevant portions and extracting extremely valuable information from delicate and subtle clues. We review some basic elements of the explanation to be provided, before plunging into the details.

To buy: http://www.amazon.ca/House-Debt-Recession-Prevent-Happening/dp/022608194X

Occupy Wall Street: A New American Dream ?

I have been actively following all the arab revolutions for the past 9 months. The revolutionary wind blowing across the middle East was so strong that it was able to destroy the pyramids of Moubarak and the Palace of Ben Ali and the tent of Ghaddafi.

Wind is still blowing out in Syria and Yemen. It will not be too long before we see Assad of Syria fleeing out to Iran and seeing Saleh of Yaman carried away to Saudi Arabia.

However, the new wave in North America might be much much stronger and might change everything across the world. Occying Wall Street is not like demonstrating on the street of Homs city in Syria. On the other hand, this means, the revolution is touching the global financial hard core. This means that the $$$ position is being challenged.

This means that we are at the verge of a new third world war or we are lucky the see a new world emerging. This time, it is not the globalization of the internet. It is the globalization of poverty power. The poor are raising their heads to see the horrible future facing their children. The poor are looking around them to see behemoth 1% riches eating 95% of the world economy while the the remaming 99% of the 7billions soul on earth having less than 5% of the globe resources.

Petition to broadcast AlJazeera English to North America

We, the people that believe in democracy, freedom of speech, justice and prosperity to every living soul are grateful to Aljazeera news channel for its much appreciated efforts; its strong will and courage for its continuous coverage of the inhumane massacres to shed the light on Israeli terrorism against all definition of human rights that are recognized by international laws.

While we can rely on the Aljazeera news channel and the aljazeera.net internet website to provide us with facts and the truth from ground zero perspective, we can not neglect the fact that the non-Arabs can only rely on other media organizations that mostly rely on the Zionists’ biased points of view.  For that, we the people, demand of Aljazeera for an English media to communicate the facts to non-Arabic readers and viewers.  Many of us don’t fully understand Arabic or at least can’t read it well enough to rely on the aljazeera.net website as a source of information.  We believe an English media can help us and help the other non-Arabic speaking people that lack the understanding of our cause or have no other alternative than to rely on the Zionist propaganda and their biased news.

We as Arabs are fully aware of our case and the fight for our cause.  However, it is unfortunate that the rest of the world is constantly bombarded with news that is continuously persuaded by Zionistic propaganda.  As a result, the truth is buried from the public.  We believe getting the true message out to the rest of the world will better help the Palestinian cause because it is simple in itself when one can visualize the truth at ground zero and simultaneously comprehend it via the English language.

Here are our signatures in the hope to get our demands, but rather our requests and wishes, which we have great hope of establishing this immense link between us and the outside world to see our point of view and to fight the media terrorism before it’s too late.  It is unfortunate that there is a so called “outside world”.  However, integrating these worlds can only create a realm of true understanding met by all on one level.  The realm in itself can destroy injustice because truth can no longer be concealed. 

We believe that media is the strongest weapon because it has indeed bestowed great horror on the Palestinian people due to the access of media that Zionists have continuously exercised to the point of obscuring injustice and killing innocent people.

We show gratitude to you for taking the time and deliberation to observe that we are calling for your application in anticipating action and providing the truth for all eyes to see.  This in itself only revitalizes hope and defines justice as it should be; fairness; righteousness; and impartiality.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/877863/posts