Talk:Religion in Singapore/Archive 1

Untitled
Needs copy/style editing, and much amplification (including effects of modernization) Dpr 04:15, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Islam in Singapore
http://www.brockwells.com/cheap-flights-to-Singapore.htm accordin to this website, Islam is the second largest religion. Not christianity. All other websites say the same thing.
 * As far as I can tell, the original source for those figures is http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/destinations/asia/singapore?v=print. That site plagarises without attribution. The current wiki article states that the figures are from the 2000 census, so you have to change the wording to reflect the new source.(or remove attribution to the old). --Dodo bird 00:18, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Chinese residents
In the first paragraph, it is written that 76 percent of the population is Chinese. Do you mean that they're of Chinese origin, or that they have dual citizinship. Or maybe you mean to say that they are not citizens of Singapore (in which case, they shouldn't count in the country's religion statistics in the first place).
 * Chinese in race, not nationality.--Dodo bird 00:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

someone start the hinduism one!
! --User_talk:Dangerous-Boy

Restrictions
Please refer to the book entitled "Ritual is Theatre, Theatre is Ritual" by Dr Margaret Chan of SMU. gabo guys —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.187.249.131 (talk) 06:04, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

http://www.smu.edu.sg/news_room/press_releases/2006/20060503.asp

The content of the book, albeit claimed to be extract from her PhD research with Royal Holloway University, is however of low academic quality (strictly to the standards required of a PhD researcher). A debate on her publication ensued in a local Toaist forum sintua.com under the title "Ritual is Theatre, Theatre is Ritual".

http://sintua.com.sg/forum/viewforum.php?f=11&topicdays=0&start=100

The topic attracted 153 postings and 2390 viewers before the thread was locked. The author of the book purportedly participated in the said forum through her photographer.

Chen LongFa 07:23, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

"...there has recently been a local publication that incessantly attacked Taoism under the pretext of academic research and yet escaped the brunt of fire."

Any article(s) to verify? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.132.3.7 (talk) 14:52, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Taoism not a major religion?
I feel perplexed at this statement in the article, "Although Taoist temples and shrines are abundant in Singapore, it has nevertheless not been officially included as a major religion for a number of reasons." Does anyone know what a 'major religion' in his definition is? As it is, Taoism is included in the Inter-Religious Organisation of Singapore (IRO) http://www.iro.org.sg/website/declaration.html so I really wonder what this comment about Taoism not being a major religion is about?

The border between Taoism and Buddhism is really blur in Singapore because many people practise Taoism but declare themselves as Buddhists. --Silverelf (talk) 16:20, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Tolerant 2011
I added Template:Dubious to statements: Both have waited about or more than a year for references, and there seems reason to doubt the point itself and the existence of usable references. --AuthorityTam (talk) 16:07, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "religious tolerance is promoted by the government"
 * "racial and religious harmony have been the top priority of the governing institutions"

JWs
Though JWs are Christian, they are not such a comparitively large group of Christians to warrant starting the Christianity section with a comment that JWs are the only Christian group not present in Singapore, nor is it necessary in the lead. The ban of their activities is still mentioned in the article in an appropriate section. Additionally, it is not the case that there are no JWs in Singapore, only that their work there is under ban. Clearly if there are JWs in prison in Singapore, then there are JWs in Singapore.

Individual cases of JW arrests are not necessary in this article, and a 'See also' link to the relevant article has been added instead.-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 10:12, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It's surprising to see a Wikipedia acting as apologist for an intolerant regime. Despite what he or the Singapore public relations department may pretend, Singapore does not merely ban the "work" of Jehovah's Witnesses. Rather, Witnesses are not even permitted to meet together even in small groups (see that among the examples the editor above chose to hide) and Witnesses may not have any Witness literature items in their possession (see that also among the examples the editor above chose to hide). Furthermore, students revealed as Witnesses in Singapore have been and at any time could be expelled from school and have other opportunities withdrawn – all without performing any supposed "JW work".--AuthorityTam (talk) 13:27, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note that excessive elaboration&mdash;which I have removed&mdash;is beyond the scope of this article, and is present in the linked article. The accusation of "apologist for an intolerant regime" is noted, and is incorrect, inappropriate, and irrelevant.-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 13:41, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The Watch Tower Society has specifically referred to "the work" of Jehovah's Witnesses being banned in Singapore, and the implication therein is that such a ban prohibits all of the religious group's activities. (1991 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, p. 201; Our Kingdom Ministry, March 1972, p. 4) It is unclear why the specific wording that "their work there is under ban" (which has only been used here at Talk and not in the article) would cause offense, and the wording is not an endorsement of decisions of the Singaporean government or of any other group. For students to be "revealed as Witnesses in Singapore", there must necessarily be Witnesses in Singapore. The statement, it is not the case that there are no JWs in Singapore, only that their work there is under ban is not an estimation of the degree of hardship faced, but a simple statement of fact.-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 13:49, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Buddhist temple image is inappropriate
According to the accompanying text, Theravada is a minority within Singaporean Buddhism, so showing an image of a Theravadan temple rather than a Mahayana one has WP:WEIGHT problems. I checked commons:Category:Buddhist temples in Singapore for a replacement, but the best image I could find was File:Sheng Jia Temple Singapore.JPG, which Chinese Wikipedia says is a Daoist temple that has an image of Guanyin, so I'm not even sure if that would make the problem worse.

I know syncretism is pretty common in Japan, but it would be rare for a Japanese to specifically describe a temple as "Shinto" unless it really wouldn't be a good representation of Japanese Buddhism; I can only assume the same is true of the Chinese community in Singapore, so if Chinese Wikipedia says 道教 I have to assume it's somehow "more" 道教 than it is 佛教.

This makes me reluctant to make any guesses regarding commons:Category:Chinese temples in Singapore, many of which look pretty Buddhist to me, but...

Thoughts?

Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 02:09, 1 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Singapore has an overlap between Buddhism and traditional Chinese beliefs. Guanyin is often considered as part of buddhism.
 * As for the image, my first preference would be an image of Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery which is the largest Buddhist temple in Singapore (and probably the most well known to locals). Another well known temple is the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum, though I personally find this more of a tourist attraction. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 12:17, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the info. That's pretty much what I suspected.
 * I'm not a fan of any of the photos currently in either of those articles. The Buddha Tooth photos all have people and/or cars too prominent that couldn't be removed by cropping without hurting the coverage of the temple itself. The one in the infobox for Kong Meng San Phor Kark See is mostly not bad, but honestly I think it should be cropped because the current image seems to give more prominence to the railing in the foreground than the temple itself. Are you good with cropping? I'm terrible with images in general, so if you disagree with my opinion on the photo as it currently is then I'll probably accept what you say.
 * Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 14:52, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
 * You are welcome! I can crop it, not a problem. Just curious though, there are quite a few images in commons:Category:Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery. Would any of these work? --Lemongirl942 (talk) 15:22, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
 * To be honest, I don't have a good "image sense" either but I personally find some of the ones below quite nice).


 * --Lemongirl942 (talk) 15:23, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I think 16 is far and away the best of those (68 gives too much relative prominence to the statue; 30 ... looks like a different building -- I'm assuming the one portrayed in the others is the 本堂; 47 just feels relatively bad compared to 16 but I can't put my finger on why), so I took the liberty to add it to the article. What do you think? Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 21:41, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm good with it! Thank you so much. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 21:46, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Pie Chart
Just an explanation on why I put the pie chart the way it is. First I put related religions together hence all the Abrahamic religions together also hence Buddhism next to Taoism on one side (both practiced in China) and Hinduism and Sikhism on the other (Indic religions). Note one reason for pie charts is like with like and not just largest to smallest (for which a straight table is best). --Erp (talk) 05:29, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Religion in Singapore. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131113154937/http://www.singstat.gov.sg/publications/publications_and_papers/cop2010/census_2010_release1/cop2010sr1.pdf to http://www.singstat.gov.sg/Publications/publications_and_papers/cop2010/census_2010_release1/cop2010sr1.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 06:33, 14 October 2017 (UTC)