Science And Religion In Cat's Cradle By Kurt Vonnegut

In Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut expands on his humanistic ideals and explores religion in order to analyze the universality of the principals various religions teach. Vonnegut’s presentation of science and religion in a satirical setting serves to illustrate humanities need for these institutions and discuss the full extent of their impact on humanity. Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle uses a fictitious religion, Bokonism, to show how a faith gains its greatest following during difficult times. This enables Vonnegut to create a world in which a conflict between science and religion brings about progress within both institutions. Kurt Vonnegut writes Cat’s Cradle to ridicule religious institutions while also taking note of the fact that they may prove necessary. In Cat’s Cradle Kurt Vonnegut uses Illium as an allegorical representation of science. In doing so, Kurt enables himself to …show more content…
From early on in the story Kurt tells the reader, through Asa breed, that “new knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become” (Vonnegut 41). He likens knowledge to currency that has to be accumulated like any other tangible object. The research intitution in illium aims to achieve this goal and to use this accumulation of knowledge to better the world. Asa Breed believes scientific research is an honest profession that aims to simplify every aspect of life. In his own words, “We don’t want to Mistify,” yet the more he tries to explain his ideas the more confusion he creates (Vonnegut 36). Intelligence and education appear to be admired by the author yet in the end they unleash Ice-Nine’s chain reaction that brings about the end of the world. Vonnegut questions if knowledge should be associated with salvation by ironically displaying the outcome of scientific