This past weekend, I got to hang out with my brother and my cousin at my grandparent’s house.  As is often the case when we hang out, we started doing some movie quotes.  One of the quotes my cousin brought up was from Pirates of the Caribbean when Barbosa says, “That’s not possible!” and Jack responds with “Not probable.”

The reminder of that line got me to thinking.  Earlier, an atheist (I think it was Daniel Morgan, but I’m not positive now and I’m too lazy to search through the comments to look for it) told me that if I were to assume the non-existence of God I would be able to come up with an alternate idea of morality just like atheists do.  (I have to interject quickly that this tactic is a rather nice one…when you can’t put forth a postive argument, make the detractor come up with the argument for you!)  I’ve been working a bit on that idea (although what I’ve written is not yet ready for publishing on the blog–if I finish it, I shall put it here though) and I’ve discovered that, from an atheist perspective, you quickly run into arguments that are no longer conclusive but instead are based on “that’s what it probably would be.”

A good illustration of this is when examining what I call the “Matrix argument” based on the Matrix movies.  An honest atheist will admit that he has no sure way to say that anything we perceive is actually real.  We could be hallucinating everything that we see, feel, hear, taste, or smell.  All these senses ultimately exist as just electrical impulses in the mind (assuming the physicality of the brain) and thus they can be manipulated by outside sources without the person who perceives the senses being aware of this manipulation.

The most common atheist response to this that I have run into is this: “It is highly improbable that a world like the Matrix exists and that I am in it.  It is more likely that the world really exists as I perceive it.”

I ued to accept this, but now I’m thinking about it more.  How does that atheist determine what idea is more “probable” than another?  Is there any way to actually do so, or is it simply an ad hoc arbitrary statement that really means “I believe it is more likely that the world I sense is real than that it is not real”? 

Most atheists at this point wield the shield of “Occam’s Razor.”  But that really doesn’t help us any here because Occam’s Razor itself does not exist in a vacuum.  Occam’s Razor is an assumed probability: “That which has the fewest premises is probably the one that is right.”  How do we know that Occam’s Razor is itself accurate?

The atheist will say, “Because we have perceived that normally the concept with fewest premises turn out to be right.”

But this, in turn, results in a greater circular reasoning.  Our perception of reality is “probably” right because of Occam’s Razor; Occam’s razor is “probably” right because of our perceptions.  In both instances, that which is “probable” is determined circularly.

Ultimately, what is “probably” true is nothing more than what the individual wants to be true.  Thus, a theist says, “It is more probable that the universe is created than eternal” while an atheist says, “It is more probable that the universe is eternal than created.”  The very term “probable” depends on a pre-existing acceptance of what one will consider to be more “likely” in the first place. When step out of the box, however, we see that “probability” is a myth.  Things are only probable if they agree with what you expect and expectations require a prior commitment to a concept of what is more probable.

Probability therefore rests on circular reasoning.

(Of course I do have to note here for the sake of clarification that I am not speaking of mathematical probabilities; this is a look at philosophical probabilities only.)