TED Community » Jean Ayoub

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Contributing to making a difference in our world

People don't know that I'm good at

Cooking!

My TED Story

I discovered TED on the internet a while back, I became a fan and when time permits I do not miss an opportunity to view/listen to contributions

Comments

• TEDCred score: +75.00 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A comment on Conversation: What IS religion?

  Oct 22 2012: For many who were born in a religious ( any) family environment, Religion grows with us growing in that environment. as a a habit and a custom. We inherit religion when we are born from our fathers and mothers just like our last name.
  If we live in a "religion practicing" family our faith to that family religion grows strong as we grow and watch father and mother exercise their faith daily or on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays etc and as we start to accompany them for that activity. Alternatively if we are born to parents who do not believe or practice any faith, it is highly unlikely that we become believers ourselves, in that sense many of those who consider themselves believers did not have the opportunity to question the foundations of that (inherited) religion and its philosophy as Christian Martinez mentions in his opening statement, rather adopted it as a given and grew up with it.
  My experience with my own (2) kids and of course this experience do not provide a scientific base to define or undefine Religion; I offered them the opportunity, when they reached age sixteen to reflect on that specific inheritance and formulate an opinion by themselves: "You were born Catholics because your father was born like that and so did your grandfather" etc - Now you have the opportunity to 1) look at all different religions and faiths that world has to offer 2) compare with what you have inherited and exercised as a faith within your family 3) chose to keep things the way they are as far as your religion is concerned or choose another "way" that reflects more your aspirations, ideals and beliefs. They had two years for that "internal search" and today, several years later, my son turned Buddhist and my daughter is fairly agnostic! Religion is a form of knowledge that we are ( or not) comfortable with and that influences our behavior and our perception of things together with education, life experience, science, etc...........
  Personally I am an atheist

• A comment on Conversation: Is love a rational process?

  Oct 22 2012: "I want a man who's kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a millionaire?" (Zsa Zsa Gabor)
  
  Love is around the corner, but not around every corner! I think the following article by Aaron Ben-Zeév "in In the Name of Love" ( published in 2008) is worth reading
  
  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-name-love/200809/when-do-we-fall-in-love

• A comment on Conversation: Is the generation in education getting less intelligent than the ones before them or smarter?

  Jun 29 2011: Great conversation indeed! I think it is very difficult to generalize education per say, perhaps in the past we used to learn more things (in universities) as general knowledge next to our majors and that made us good "generalists" which is an asset in itself and today's education is more diversified certainly but more focused as well, which makes today's students better knowledgeable in their chosen field of education, which is again an asset - difficult to compare both "schools of education" and have an objective judgement! Perhaps one element to differentiate is the "hardship" as with hardship comes "early maturity and with maturity comes a better eagerness for learning and achieving; that itself remains a bit subjective as i am sure many of today's students still live through hardships and for many reasons.
  
  It is evident that today'sand with better knowledge sharing and information technology systems, it much easier to have access to education at all levels, which was not the case for my generation (I am 50)
  
  All in all i do believe a certain connection and common grounds still exists between different generational education systems, for example i remember that my parents where able to accompany me and support during my school years throughout and i was able to do the same with my children.
  
  I a nutshell education and at all levels remain very much affected by culture, national systems and it is not possible in my mind to find many common denominators to assess it at the global level. I used to have an economics teacher at university who and repeatedly his class that education is a tiny part of life and what we do with it is what really makes the difference.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Is personality heavily determined by genetics?

  Jun 23 2011: I have to admit that and as far as i can go back in memory, i have not read much about links between genetics and personality; having said that, i know that i have a (identical) twin brother and the difference between our respective characters and personality is just huge !

• A comment on Conversation: Aliens exist.

  Jun 23 2011: I do not know if Aliens exist but if they do i would sincerely love to meet them
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: What is freedom?

  Jun 10 2011: I would think that Mrs Ghandi's quote could read like this for me
  
  The ability to listen to and learn from others, the will to remain open for new ideas and the courage to question myself and my deeds is essential for my progress
  thank you Andrea

• A comment on Conversation: What motivates you?

  Jun 10 2011: Learning from past experiences, living fully the present and enjoying life with family, friends and colleagues, is a great source of motivation for me; add to that, doing my little portion to change the world and make it a better place to be is what makes jump out of bed in the morning and look forward to a bright and fruitful day, day after day...