Talk:Religion in Australia

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[edit] Big Call

Muslims had contact with Australia and her people before European settlement, Macassans (an ethnic group from eastern Indonesia) began visiting the Australia in the seventeenth century.

This is a big claim it needs to be substanciated with verifiable documentation. Gnangarra 14:08, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Revert

[edit] Revert - Why

  • Islam, total 281,600, 1.5% a 40.2% change (an estimated 400 000 Muslims including those with dual citizenship, non-religous Muslims, and others who wish not to disclose their faith).
  • Judaism, total 84,000, 0.4% a 5.2% change (an estimated 150 000 Jews including those with dual citizenship, non-religous Jews, and others who wish not to disclose their faith).

I reverted the article after these two Faiths were singled out. Why put estimates against exact figures? Duel citizenship doesn't exclude you from the census records. Non-religious, not disclosing are already shown in the figures. Gnangarra 22:19, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Non-religious Jews, okay. What are non-religious muslims? And non-religious jews are by definition not followers of Judaism. If they were followers of Judaism they would be religious jews. --Sumple (Talk) 05:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ABS demographic info and commentary

Further information on demographics is important, however how this is included is important - where info is sourced from the ABS and labeled as such, i.e., the table, then additional info IMO should not be conflated into the table. Explanations and clarifications of ABS data are useful but the source should be identified if it is not ABS. -- Paul foord 12:54, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jedi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_census_phenomenon

"In Australia more than 70,000 people declared themselves members of the Jedi in the 2001 census. The Australian Bureau of Statistics issued an official press release [3] following a large number of media enquiries on the subject, prior to the 2001 census. The ABS stated that the code for 'not defined' would be substituted for any respondents entering 'Jedi' in the religion question, and stressed the social impact of making misleading or false statements on the census."

Should this information be included?

I was working in melbourne then and an email was being circulated just prior to the census encouraging people to enter 'Jedi' as their religion. From memory they were aiming for a critical mass of 200,000 - 250,000 as this would have forced some form of recognition as a religion. (sorry very vague its been a while).
It's open to interpretation the 1st question is was the census recording an actual religion or highlighting a problimatical event created for/by the census. The second question is if it's an actual religion does met the definition of a religious organistaion under Australian Law and as such be recognised. The article is about religion in Australia so therefore one would expect to information on every religion in Australia what ever it legal status.
Under Australian law there is no restriction on religion, this article even mentions that. The challenge is if you believe the religion to exist(ed) then you add it to the page. If you think its just a creation to manipulate the census then it doesn't apply to this article Gnangarra 15:07, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Christianity in Australia

I think, like Hinduism in Australia, Islam in Australia and Judaism in Australia, Christianity in Australia should also be a seperate topic. Religion in Australia can give a broad view of all religions in Australia, but topics like Islam/Christianity/Hinduism in Australia give a more detailed account of that particular faith. Therefore, i am in support of Christianity in Australia being a different topic to Religion in Australia. Tarins01 03:06, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Also needs more details on Buddhism here and in a general article about Buddhism in Australia. --Sumple (Talk) 03:32, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Buddhism in Australia is now up and running.ßlηguγΣη | Have your say!!! - review me 02:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
The reason that Christianity in Australia has been sawn off by admins like enochlau and also users like Xtra and Beneaththelandslide is that it seems that you have started the article as an attack page or a point-making exercise. It will probably have a proper article once everything has calmed down.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 03:35, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
I would like to see such a standalone page if there is: a) sufficient relevant information, b) it is written neutrally and not to attack. Xtra 04:21, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copy Edit

The bulk of the article should be the ABS stats/demographic, legal, and an historical overview. Then the article should then be more of a directory to various topics with 1 or 2 paragraph summarires of each specific religion including any demominational breakdown. Gnangarra 05:39, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Interfaith section

I am wondering if it is alright to put this kind of stuff in. A section that I put in about it in Buddhism in Australia was sawn off by an anon. I thought it wasn't inflammatory, and it was sourced.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! - review me 08:06, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] proposed merge of Christianity in Australia into Religion in Australia

I oppose merging the Christianity in Australia article into Religion in Australia. Christianity is the largest religion in Australia, but not the only one. --Scott Davis Talk 14:12, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

New version of Christianity in Australia Copied from Talk:Christianity in Australia

Is the above talk relevant, or are we starting from scratch?

Also, the bit "A number of current and past politicians present themselves as Christian in a partisan manner" seems a bit dodgy - there's no citations - it seems to be original research based on the authors' memory. Andjam 09:00, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

It looks like Paul's new article uses some of my draft article mentioned above, but other bits are absent. We are going to need to keep a watch and tight reign on unsourced or badly sourced statements. While I think this is an important article to have, it also has a history of vandalism and bias. I have noted that I oppose merging this article to the general Religion in Australia. Unfortunately, as I will be on holidays for the next month, my editing will be sporadic. --Scott Davis Talk 14:20, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
I wrote this using Scott's draft as a start, but tried to be pick up on some aspects not covered. I agree work is required in mentioning individuals. It certainly can be improved. To achieve some balance in addressing Religion in Australia would appear to require an article on Christianity in its own right as there are articles on Islam in Australia and History of the Jews in Australia. To merge it would unbalance that article if the topic is to be addressed effectively. The Christian section would be limited to something quite short. Paul foord 15:41, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Oppose merger for reasons above Paul foord 15:41, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I removed the merge tags. --Scott Davis Talk 15:00, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] interfaith respect

I was wondering about adding a small section here and a larger article separately detailing information developed about police dealing with religious and ethnic differences. I was doing research on religious implications for oaths and ran across a remarkbably developed governent guide published in Australia and think it deserves some space - it also published some of the demographics reported here.

Here's the links I found:

Commissioner for Declarations, The Duties of especially pages 30-33.

VICTORIAN PARLIAMENT LAW REFORM COMMITTEE INQUIRY INTO OATHS AND AFFIRMATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO THE MULTICULTURAL COMMUNITY

There is a guide referenced/mentioned here as being very popular in this report.

it's mentioned here but has been pulled for further review towards a 3rd revision.

see Australasian Police Multicultural Advisory Bureau

However the wayback machine has the second edition still....

A Practical Reference to Religious Diversity for Operational Police

While the document is copyrighted I would consider rendering the majority of the text into the main article if justification can be found - I think it's that good.--Smkolins 04:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

More references directly or probably linked - OPENING ADDRESS Ivan Kolarik National Police Ethnic Advisory Bureau, A Practical Reference to Religious Diversity (New Zealand), National Consultations on eliminating prejudice against Arab and Muslim Australians - Strategies Document, Achieving Harmony through Religious Understanding a resource manual for teachers--Smkolins 04:37, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a reasonable topic to be covered. There also appears to be little information in the article about interfaith movements or relations between religions. Most of what is here so far is historic demographic data. Anyone adding relations info needs to remember WP:NPOV and WP:V so we don't end up with a hate diatribe. --Scott Davis Talk 14:22, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm wondering if the center of the article could be a significant amount of the text of A Practical Reference to Religious Diversity for Operational Police which has already passed through layers of review in a multifaith context - however while the document doesn't have any copyright notice the website it came from does. So what's the rule - it would be nice to use at least some of the art work in the document - making the article basically about this publication (not sure if I can track down rev 1, and rev 3 hasn't been released yet) and as much of the text. Then that article would be a //main article// that could be pointed to from this and similar articles. A number of the above refs could be secondary references for broader context.--Smkolins 02:04, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Something more primitive than a rough draft is here [[1]]--Smkolins 03:18, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
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