Chapter 10, Level 1 Self-Quiz: AII

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Choose the correct framework for the following analogical argument.

1 Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. 2 This is, of course, a mistake. 3 If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, 4 nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. 5 But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, 6 I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. 7 If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. 8 It is customary to suppose that, if a belief is widespread, there must be something reasonable about it. 9 I do not think this view can be held by anyone who has studied history.

Bertrand Russell, "Is There a God?"

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