display all the ideas for this combination of texts
2 ideas
21472 | 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'. |
21468 | 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? |