I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with religion.
I'm not religious, I classify myself as an atheist. Sometimes I wish I could be religious and have that faith, the idea of having 'someone' there for you, always is quite appealing. In difficult times, it sounds like a nice comfort to have. But there are things I have issues with, mostly when religions try to have a say in laws and such. I believe that state and religion should be separate things. I also have trouble with the fact that some big disagreements in the world have a religious aspect: the troubles that have gone on in Northern Ireland are an example of that.
Of course, regardless of my personal views on religion, I am very respectful of a person's right to believe that they do.
Now a question for you...what is the education system like in Italy? (How old are you when you start going to school? What different schools are there - like ones for younger children, older children, university, etc.?) Anything you'd like to tell me about it would be nice. I love to know about different education systems!
Being able to turn to God in times of trouble is definitely a great comfort. I'm a bit confused about some of the issues between religion and state, so I can't really say anything about that. It's terrible indeed when people fight each other over religion, and I'm positive that's NOT what God wants from us. Religion should be about love and understanding, and people should always be respectful regardless of their faith or lack thereof. One thing that quite irks me is when people make fun of religion. I'd rather have an atheist who disagrees with religious views rather than people who randomly criticize things they know little to nothing about.
(I'm going to answer your question in a separate comment instead.)
That's how I feel about it is - not necessarily the bit about God not wanting that from us, but I understand that viewpoint. Why would God want that? It would be barbaric to want anything like that. I think people hide behind religion and they act like religion is a justification for their prejudice. When other people have no trouble separating some of the things written in the Bible (for example) from how they feel about the situation.
I'd rather be an atheist who disagrees than to make fun of it. I will admit that I have made fun of religion - but it's only when a person makes fun of atheism. There's this part of the Yahoo website called Yahoo! Answers and there are some very frustrating people on there who ask silly questions about atheism, so I sometimes give silly answers back. I think that goes with the idea of, give respect to get respect. They haven't respected me so I won't respect them. Though generally I try to, even if they do have silly comments. Lol.
Education system is definitely hard to explain in a language that is not my own, but I'm going to try. Children start going to school at the age of 6. There are five years of primary school (age 6 to 11), three years of lower secondary school (age 11 to 14), and between three and five years of upper secondary school (age 14 to 17 or 19). You can choose among different kinds of upper secondary school; some of them actually teach you useful things for your future job, while others don't. Unfortunately that's the case of my type of school, which is called "liceo". If you have a five-year high school degree you can go to university. University should last three years for Bachelor's degree (which is quite useless, as I've happened to discover of late), then you can choose to study for other two years and get a Master's degree. After that you can decide to apply for a PhD, though there's a selection among graduates in order to do start one. I hope you can get the general meaning of this all at the very least...
I do understand it, it makes sense. It's a little similar to ours in that you start school, finish primary school at 11 and go on to secondary. But you start school a lot later than us - 6 is quite old compared to here. I like the idea of children starting at 6.
You also finish school later than us, at 19! (We technically finish at 16, then you can do 2 extra years which you usually need to do to go to university). Looking at the difference is very interesting to me. Thank you for sharing!
I'm not religious, I classify myself as an atheist. Sometimes I wish I could be religious and have that faith, the idea of having 'someone' there for you, always is quite appealing. In difficult times, it sounds like a nice comfort to have. But there are things I have issues with, mostly when religions try to have a say in laws and such. I believe that state and religion should be separate things. I also have trouble with the fact that some big disagreements in the world have a religious aspect: the troubles that have gone on in Northern Ireland are an example of that.
Of course, regardless of my personal views on religion, I am very respectful of a person's right to believe that they do.
Now a question for you...what is the education system like in Italy? (How old are you when you start going to school? What different schools are there - like ones for younger children, older children, university, etc.?) Anything you'd like to tell me about it would be nice. I love to know about different education systems!
Reply
It's terrible indeed when people fight each other over religion, and I'm positive that's NOT what God wants from us. Religion should be about love and understanding, and people should always be respectful regardless of their faith or lack thereof.
One thing that quite irks me is when people make fun of religion. I'd rather have an atheist who disagrees with religious views rather than people who randomly criticize things they know little to nothing about.
(I'm going to answer your question in a separate comment instead.)
Reply
I'd rather be an atheist who disagrees than to make fun of it. I will admit that I have made fun of religion - but it's only when a person makes fun of atheism. There's this part of the Yahoo website called Yahoo! Answers and there are some very frustrating people on there who ask silly questions about atheism, so I sometimes give silly answers back. I think that goes with the idea of, give respect to get respect. They haven't respected me so I won't respect them. Though generally I try to, even if they do have silly comments. Lol.
Reply
Children start going to school at the age of 6. There are five years of primary school (age 6 to 11), three years of lower secondary school (age 11 to 14), and between three and five years of upper secondary school (age 14 to 17 or 19).
You can choose among different kinds of upper secondary school; some of them actually teach you useful things for your future job, while others don't. Unfortunately that's the case of my type of school, which is called "liceo".
If you have a five-year high school degree you can go to university. University should last three years for Bachelor's degree (which is quite useless, as I've happened to discover of late), then you can choose to study for other two years and get a Master's degree. After that you can decide to apply for a PhD, though there's a selection among graduates in order to do start one.
I hope you can get the general meaning of this all at the very least...
Reply
I do understand it, it makes sense. It's a little similar to ours in that you start school, finish primary school at 11 and go on to secondary. But you start school a lot later than us - 6 is quite old compared to here. I like the idea of children starting at 6.
You also finish school later than us, at 19! (We technically finish at 16, then you can do 2 extra years which you usually need to do to go to university). Looking at the difference is very interesting to me. Thank you for sharing!
Reply
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