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!

   

Sales Productivity and Artificial Intelligence

I have been working with several Customer relationship management (CRM) packages since 2006. Salesforce is a leader now especially on the cloud. SugarCRM has been a promising platform as well.

The new Lightning experience from Salesforce is a real buzz. It has raised attention and brought many people to try this new platform. It should boost productivity. However, I do not think it will be a sales booster as well. Sales is not really about technology. Good sales people can use any kind of technology to sell. Increasing the odds of selling needs information, skills and talents.

The information will help take better decision of course in a shorter span of time. This is critical to close a deal. However, it takes much more than being productive and efficient to convince a big client to acquire a good or a service. Software can assist with all the logistics of selling. They can help make sales people more productive and spend less time looking for information or working on presentations.

Sales packages might be able to help if they get enough information from the Sales person on time. At the moment, data is flowing one way from the computerized application to the eyes of the sales person. If we can get data flowing the other way round during the meeting that will be amazingly a plus. 

I am still looking forward to seeing the tool that will truly boost the sales talents and change the average sales person into a successful effective account manager. I doubt tools and packages will do that. However, artificial intelligence might get us closer to that end.

I imagine the sales person of the future to get into a client's office with Google Glass or something similar, an iPad with a CRM package, and an earphone. The glass will help the sales person analyze the body-language of the client in order to pitch to close a deal just on time (Right when it clicks !). There is no software in the world that can understand the interactions with the clients at the moment. It needs more intelligence to acquire more info.

In that, the smart glass will acquire more information right during the meeting. Send them back to a smart engine that is fully equipped with business intelligence and tailored services. Then, the machine will start feeding the human agent with more custom information uniquely packaged for the client she is meeting.

Isn't a big step forward? Would this help sales people sell more, better, and in shorter span of time?

Ramadan 2015 in Canada

The great month is coming quickly. I still remember the first Ramadan I spent in Montreal away of my family in Lebanon. It was so harsh and so tough. Without the company I had during the Concordia MSA 2004 Iftar, it would have been much harder.

http://almadinah-center.org/en/ramadan-2015/

Ten years passed and 11 Ramadan in this country. I still love to get inspired by the pious crowd gathering to break their fast. They come from all four corners of the world to this lovely city called Montreal. They come from all corners of Montreal to the center of the city (where Al-Madinah center is) to share their meals together.

Every day, when I break my bread with someone else, I feel the joy of being able to celebrate the blessings of that day and to know a new Canadian fellow.

The Armnenian "Genocide" 1915

The University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies has compiled figures by province and district that show there were 2,133,190 Armenians in the empire in 1914 and only about 387,800 by 1922.
Post 1914????

Hence, one can not deny that:

1. Horrible killing happened in the Eastern Anatolia and some of the states in which Armenians had a significant presence.
2. Young Turks were extremely brutal in Anatolia, Middle East, Egypt and Arabia

Furthermore,

1.   The declaration of the genocide is a political move to benefit of the 100th memory of the massacre.
2.   The Turkish denial is a political/financial defensive position because they already signed cooperation protocols in 2009
3.   The Arabic support in some countries is not reasonable but politically and ideologically motivated by some of the Islamist movements aligning with current Turkey.

So it is a war between the Young Turks and Eastern Anatolia Armenians. Why it was converted into Ottoman Empire Defense? I guess the main challenge to the Genocide in some countries in 2015 (especially in Lebanon was motivated by political ideologies not by historical facts). 

Wilson puts it in a concise and short blurb (http://wilson.engr.wisc.edu/Armenia/justin.html)
"The region that was called "Ottoman Armenia," the "Six Vilâyets" of Sivas, Mamüretülaziz, Diyarbakir, Bitlis, Van, and Erzurum, was only 17% Armenian. It was 78% Muslim. This was to have important consequences for the Armenian revolution, because the only way to create the "Armenia" the revolutionaries wanted was to expel the Muslims who lived there."

The New York Times reported that: "The Young Turks, who called themselves the Committee of Unity and Progress, launched a set of measures against the Armenians, including a law authorizing the military and government to deport anyone they “sensed” was a security threat. (they did the same in the Arabic Middle East as well) (http://www.nytimes.com/…/times…/topics_armeniangenocide.html)

Third, the greatest cost to villagers was the forced purchase of guns. The villagers were turned into rebel "soldiers," whether they wished to be or not. If they were to fight the Turks, they needed weapons. The revolutionaries smuggled weapons from Russia and forced the Armenian villagers to buy. The methods used to force the villagers to buy were very effective, as British consul Seele reported:
"An agent arrived in a certain village and informed a villager that he must buy a Mauser pistol. The villager replied that he had no money, whereupon the agent retorted, "You must sell your oxen." The wretched villager then proceeded to explain that the sowing season would soon arrive and asked how a Mauser pistol would enable him to plough his fields. For reply the agent proceeded to destroy the poor man's oxen with his pistol and then departed.(Wilson)

Even Europeans, friends of the Armenians, could see that the revolutionaries were the cause of the curse that had descended on Eastern Anatolia. Consul Seele wrote in 1911:
"From what I have seen in the parts of the country I have visited I have become more convinced than ever of the baneful influence of the Taschnak Committee on the welfare of the Armenians and generally of this part of Turkey. It is impossible to overlook the fact in that in all places where there are no Armenian political organisations or where such organisations are imperfectly developed, the Armenians live in comparative harmony with the Turks and Kurds. (Wilson)

http://wilson.engr.wisc.edu/Armenia/justin.html

The individualism impact on our global culture

Since the emergence of humanity on the Earth, the family has been the primary social unit. It has been also the principal economic unit. Humanity as a collective of families evolved to be the dominant species on Earth according to Darwin (1871) and Megarry (1995).

Humans, in families, advance and progress better. They foster advantages and realize synergies that would not be realized otherwise. Survival, performance, security, development, education, civilization in addition to other humane progressive characteristics were fostered and nurtured due to the social bounds between family members and close ties within the societies.Until now, family businesses manage 3/4 of the human productions globally (Goody, 1996).

There is a price tag for this family synergy. Group friction affects the members of the same families in various forms demonstrated by business conflicts, divorce, parental issues, youth issues. Such issues hinder the survival and growth of humans on earth.

Families ties and kinship are divine trust to the human according the main religions of the world Islam, Judaism and Christianity. They might be also mandated by other religions of the world but I am not aware of.

Family kinship is a moral order and a divine order to share value and offer compassion for others within the same family and extend that goodness to the larger national or universal families.

Lately, the western culture is advocating for the individual as a social unit of humanity. What are the impact of such a paradigm shift in the humane relations? What is the impact of the way we run our lives?

On the one hand, the individualism is the basis of the amoral economic logic of modern money market (Steward, 2003). The individualism is the basis of capitalism as well. The individualism lead us to live an introvert live in which a neighbor does not know whether her next door old friend is sleeping hunrgy or has got a simple meal.

We are living in an age in which we close our doors and forget about the rest of the world around us. we die alone. Our nieghbours leave this world alone. We continue our lives as if nothing happened !!!

Why Montreal households and business need to move to LED fixtures

There are three basic types of lights in everyday use in homes across the country. 

1. Traditional incandescent light bulbs have been around for over a century and are in the process of being phased out due to high energy consumption. They contain tiny coils that produce light when heated. Consequently, most of the energy is consumed by producing heat making them less than friendly to the environment. 
2. Halogen is a type of incandescent but produces significantly more heat and can become a fire or burn hazard. 
3. Fluorescent lights contain mercury, a toxic heavy metal that pollutes the environment if not discarded properly. 

Compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) are designed to fit a normal light fixture. Disadvantages are the delay in reaching peak brightness and shortened life if they are turned on and off frequently. While they are more energy efficient than incandescent lights, they still consume considerably more electricity than light emitting diode (LED) lamps. When it comes to going green and applying clean technology to lighting, light emitting diode lamps are the best available.

With today’s technology, these lamps have developed to the point of illuminating a room as effectively as traditional lamps at a fraction of the overall cost. 

• A typical incandescent bulb has a life of around 1,000 hours while LED bulbs will last over 25,000. 
• Consequently, these newer type lamps will pay for themselves many times over during their life cycle. Add the reduced energy consumption and the savings are even more impressive. To produce the same amount of light as a 60 watt incandescent light, these clean technology bulbs use only 11.5 watts. 
• As a result, each bulb can save more than $125 over its lifetime. 
• Recent improvements in these lights mean they can fit into traditional fixtures for a painless retrofit. They also have an omnidirectional beam spread available and are no longer limited to shining light in a single direction.

Not only is there a financial advantage associated with a retrofit to improved lighting, it helps homeowners go green. Due to energy efficiency and being mercury-free, there is less of an impact to the environment. No longer is it necessary to choose between doing the right thing and saving money. Switching to LED lighting accomplishes both. 

 If you are interested in doing an analysis of a LED retrofit for your house or your business in Montreal, drop me a line and I would gladly assist you in picking the best technology for the best price available.

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).