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Fragment of a discussion from User talk:Tmtoulouse
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My own opinion on this matter is that religion is and should be treated here as an irrational system of understanding the world but that is not to say those that are religious themselves are necessarily irrational themselves. So while slamming religion due to its under-lying tenants the believers may not be deserving of the same treatment. If you follow me.

Ace of Spades21:22, 3 July 2011

I agree with this, assuming that by "understanding the world" you mean "understanding the physical world." I agree with Trent on most things but not here. My personal view is that science and religion are basically orthogonal.

Doctor Dark (talk)04:47, 4 July 2011

Physical is not the key word, rather observable (not observable merely in the sense of vision but as broadly as that term can be defined). Science is about making sense of observations and applying those observations to the creation of model construction to add in comprehension of our observed reality. The only way that there could ever be an epistemological system orthogonal to science is if it some how adds in comprehending non-observable reality.

But this leads into the same issues I brought up below. Systems of knowledge that try and postulate hidden things operating in a universe that acts exactly as if there are no hidden things violates the principle of parsimony. I don't see how anyone would be okay with an epistemology that didn't embrace parsimony, you would get stuck in an infinitely increasing loop of made up gibberish with no mechanism to break out of it.

Tmtoulouse (talk)05:20, 4 July 2011

Well, my question then is this - how can you exclude Berkleyan idealism, when its observable predictions are identical to those of materialism? Furthermore, I'd suggest that the principle of parsimony favours idealism over materialism. The materialist universe contains a large amount of information, which can be divided into two parts: the information which, will at some point, be known or observed by some mind; and the part which no mind will ever know or observe. Arguably, the unknown information is much more than the known information. Materialism claims that this information exists, even though no mind will ever know it. For example, there is a planet in the Andromeda galaxy, and it is having a certain type of weather today, but it is quite possible no mind will ever know what that type of weather that is. Materialism claims this information exists, even though no mind will ever know it. Idealism does not claim that information exists, that only information that will ever be in some mind somewhere exists. According to materialism, unobserved things exist in particular states; even though no mind may ever know what that state is; according to idealism, things only exist in particular states if a mind knows they are in that particular state, and otherwise exist in a sort of state of mere potentiality, a superposition of all their possible states. Doesn't it then follow, that materialism is much more complex than idealism, because materialism posits the actual existence of all this unknown and unknowable reality? And hence, by the principle of parsimony, we should be idealists rather than materialists?

(((Zack Martin)))05:39, 4 July 2011