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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'New Foundations for Mathematical Logic' and 'Parerga and Paralipomena'

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2 ideas

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / a. Religious Belief
Only religion introduces serious issues to uneducated people [Schopenhauer]
     Full Idea: Religion is the only means of introducing some notion of the high significance of life into the uncultivated heads of the masses.
     From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XV:174)
     A reaction: Cf Philip Larkin's poem 'Church Going'. On the whole Schopenhauer didn't actually believe that our lives had any 'high significance'.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / a. Problem of Evil
The Creator created the possibilities for worlds, so should have made a better one than this possible [Schopenhauer]
     Full Idea: The Creator created not only the world, but also created possibility itself; therefore he should have created the possibility of a better world than this one.
     From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XII:156)
     A reaction: This is explicitly a response to Leibniz's claim that the Creator selected the best of all possible worlds from the available options. The Euthyphro Question hovers here: must the Creator accept what is possible (the platonic view), or create possibility?