Talk:Egyptian Australian

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[edit] Copts

I have reverted recent edits for Egyptian Australians, specifically where the number of Coptics. According to the 2006 Census only 19,928 Australian residents declared affiliation to the Coptic Orthdox Church (see Affiliation (full classification list) by Sex&producttype=Census Tables&method=Place of Usual Residence&areacode=0 here).

I have also removed the estimate by the Egyptian Government on the number of Egyptian Australians in 2000 (70,000). Conventional wisdom would suggest the ABS are in a better position to make an estimate and their estimate is more recent. Kransky (talk) 04:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

The information found here is neutral. Besides, the Census DOES NOT always count everybody. How is this source inaccurate? Look at this. It's not as neutral as the first one I showed you, but it's directly from the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Sydney itself—from the year 2003. There were over 50,000 Orthodox Copts in the Diocese ALONE (not all of Australia). You need to prove how both of these are inaccurate. Until then, I want answers, so don't think you can just get into an edit war without having validity.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Troy 07 (talk • contribs) 3 June 2008
  • I do not think the speech in Parliament read as though the speaker was quoting from good data. He doesn't explain where he got his figures from. The census does count most people and in a reasonably neutral way. The church would be rather interested in having larger numbers rather than smaller so I don't see it is a throughly reliable source.--Matilda talk 01:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Either way, the other reference says that there was 50,000 in the year 2003, so if there's a wide range—as is the case—just don't use the census data by itself in that situation. ~ Troy (talk) 02:00, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Also, while the ABS is accurate for general stats, the article says (using an ABS stat):
"Egyptian Australians might also have nominated themselves as being of Coptic ancestry (1,890 total responses)"
What the heck is that supposed to be if the same census said that, apparently, there's 19,928 Orthodox Copts.
The ethnic Copts are vastly Christian Orthodox Copts, but there are small proportions of Catholics as well as Protestants. If the religious group (Coptic Orthodox specifically) has _______ people, then the ethnic group has at least the same number, if not _______ + a # of other groups within the same ethnicity.
I personally have nothing against Census data, but this data appears to contradict itself. I don't see how a "neutral" source can be flawed to that extent. If anyone disagrees, would they at least mind to explain to me who this contradiction adds up? ~ Troy (talk) 01:20, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
  • You could add more than one ancestry so there were more responses than people for the ancestry question - ie in 2006 there were 25,451,383 responses concerning ancestry for total count of persons: 19,855,288. Ancestry and religion are two different counts (and questions on the census.--Matilda talk 01:57, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
To the comment "Egyptian Australians might also have nominated themselves as being of Coptic ancestry (1,890 total responses)" What the heck is that supposed to be if the same census said that, apparently, there's 19,928 Orthodox Copts I respond: Note there are two questions at play. In the Census 19,928 residents declared themselves to be Coptic on the religion question, and 1,890 declared themselves to be Coptic on the ancestry question. Presumably most Coptic practitioners declared themselves to have other ancestries.
I would consider what Wikipedia has to say on Reliable Sources. At the Census all Australians residents were asked to nominate their religion. Those who considered themselves to be Coptic did so. I cannot think how senior members of the church, or another bureau in another country, can possibly produce more reliable statistics. Kransky (talk) 04:01, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


Quote:"Presumably most Coptic practitioners declared themselves to have other ancestries."
Highly unlikely, as as the vast majority of the Coptic Orthodox are of Coptic origin (they even had to pay the Jizya tax to remain faithful in Egypt and suffered centuries of persecution). Most of the non-Copts within this Church specifically are converts. 18,000 out of nearly 20,000 (about 90%) are "presumably" are non-Copts. Get real. From what I know, this is inconsistent (see article "Copt"). For the record, Copt originally meant Egyptian, as it was derived from Greek and then Arabic. ~ Troy (talk) 05:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
  • So how do you account for the discrepancy?--Matilda talk 05:12, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
  • That's exactly the issue. As I said before, I have NOTHING personal against Census's, but you know, there's never a bang-on accurate source. Careful referencing and balancing out different refs can help. There is often a range of refs, which anyone could put. For example, I have said that the range in Egypt is from 6% Coptic Orthodox (usual Government Census figures) to 20% (Coptic and some other sources, ie: Washington Institute [1]). Why is there such a big gap? Well, in Egypt specifically, many say the government has arguably intentiionally deflated figures—even the CIA World Factbook has said that this figure is more like 10%. However, the other sources really range, so it depends. By bringing in the different POVs and contrasting them in a still-appealing manner, it is possible to keep things neutral. Here, it is the ethnic vs. religion question, which has personally surprised me, as I thought the gap would be far smaller (I've explained that before). By bringing in other sources and keeping it together in a non-contradictary manner, it could work out for now (until even newer figures are released). For example, right here, we can say that the census counted _______ people of Coptic ancestry and some sources say that there are _______ members of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria after a page break (in another paragraph) at the same time. That's what I say. Anyway, let's not argue or rv each other's opinions—let's just keep things in conjunction with what they should be like. ~ Troy (talk) 00:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. Like with the Coptic church, there are a few cases where a religion is also an ethnic identity, but people may not choose to nominate their religion as their ancestry. After all - we can have many ancestries, but I don't know anybody who has more than one religion at any one time! At the 2006 Census 88,834 people declared themselves as Jewish in the religion question, but 15,637 declared they were Jewish in the ancestry question. Presumably 73,000 Australian Jews nominated their ancestries as being Australian, English, Russian, German, South African etc.
I do not think the Egyptian Government or the Coptic church has the resources, funding or expertise to conduct a census that could produce estimates more reliable than the ABS. Or, to be frank, are sufficiently detatched from the issue to provide a NPOV estimate. Adding the Egyptian or church estimates would suggests they are equal in professionalism with the ABS, where in fact they are not. Kransky (talk) 05:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Please look up information that is specifically in tune with discussions. That was ONLY an example (the ONLY estimates in Egypt were either governmetn ests of Church ests). Also, I explained several times about the Coptic ethnicity. If there are only 2,000 Copts, how can there be 20,000 Orthodox Christian Copts altogether? Over 90% of the ethnic Copts in the world are Coptic Orthodox specifically. Please do not make others repeat their opinions numerous times unless you have a valid reason, and try to avoid disputes. Anyone should be able to admit that even the ABS is not bang-one accurate (unless it's some lunatic). I would suspect, as any other Copt, that Coptic Orthodox Christians in Australia are mostly of Coptic ancestry, asides from those who are: A - converts (how many could there be?)—or—B: "Australians" (Coptic Australians are still of Coptic "ancestry" if you haven't noticed). Remember to read the different arguments cleary so that you don't confuse the two next time. ~ Troy (talk) 00:58, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
    • I agree with Troy. The Coptic Orthodox Church usually keeps records of baptisms and deaths, and this is how it estimates the numbers of its members in a certain place. In addition, these estimates only take into consideration the Copt Orthodox, which means that the real number is a bit higer than the estimates of the Coptic Orthodox Church, because about 5% of Copts belong to Catholic and Protestant churches. For instance, a famous Coptic Australian activisit, Nadia Ghali, is a Copt Catholic. Also, as an Egyptian, I can assure you that the Egyptian govt would NEVER over-estimate the number of Copts anywhere. We are struggling to prove that Copts constitute between 15% and 20% of the Egyptian population, while the govt insists they are only 6%! So if the Egyptian parliament says Copts in Australia add up to 70,000 then I can assure than this is most probably an under-estimation. --Lanternix (talk) 01:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I see what Lanternix is saying. There are also Coptic Catholics and Coptic Protestants. In fact, according to that source, there are over 70,000 Orthodox Copts in New South Wales alone. You guys should consider that there is also diocese of Melbourne [2] with several Coptic Orthodox churches in Australia that are outside of NSW. 66.183.98.107 (talk) 01:54, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

To your comment Also, I explained several times about the Coptic ethnicity. If there are only 2,000 Copts, how can there be 20,000 Orthodox Christian Copts altogether? As I have responded several times, there are TWO questions being asked - ancestry and religion. Presumably most persons who declared Orthodox Christian Copts as a religion declared other ancestries in the ancestry question (Egyptian, Syrian, Australian etc), with only a few choosing to list their ancestry as thus.

The article concerns Egyptian Australians, and therefore the only fact we need to be discussing are the number of persons who declare themselves as such. I had earlier added in Coptic as an ancestry group on the assumption that some people of Egyptian background might have nominated themselves as Copts instead (this might be wrong, as Coptics could come from other countries) - should we remove Copts from this article?. Copts in Australia may be a better venue to add statistics on Copts.Kransky (talk) 22:30, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

No, it's alright the way it is. I'm just saying that the inconsitency seems a little lacking. Sure, there's the argument that there were two different questions. However, a person who is familiar with stats on the Copts (accurate ones are often hard to come by) would probably be surprised on how these two questions played out on Australia. Remember, "Coptic" literally means "Egyptian". I'm sure it should still be mentioned in this article. The only thing that I'm disputing is that I, like many other Copts, would have doubts when seeing such a wide difference between these two questions. Indeed, I wonder if you even feel similarly if not the same way. Either way, I really don't want to get into reverting eachother's edits. ~ Troy (talk) 00:29, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I did some research and can see your point about the strong relationship between Copts and Egypt, and I have no problems with Copts being mentioned in the article.
On my reason for the difference in numbers as a response to the two questions, you replied: However, a person who is familiar with stats on the Copts (accurate ones are often hard to come by) would probably be surprised on how these two questions played out on Australia. I am afraid that doesn't really shed any light, but merely reiterates your suprise. I repeat that presumably only a minority of Coptic practitioners consider their ancestry to be "Copt" and most think of themselves as Egyptian, Australian or elsewhere. Few people, as I showed you with the Jewish example, consider their religion equals their ancestry.
And I have not seen any other reliable estimate of the population of Copts in Australia. People are baptised into religions, but decades later may choose other (or no) faiths. I cannot imagine what could be simpler or more accurate than a professional, impartial census that just asks people what religion they have. Kransky (talk) 11:55, 9 June 2008 (UTC)