Religious War: ANOTHER HERO

Scary thing about heaven-seeking religions is that they discount the importance of life on earth. If one is going to spend eternity in bliss, events in the temporal world don't matter much.

Laughter in the face of overwhelming doom is existential heroism. We're all going to die. Death is the end. Let's have some fun now. Kurt Vonnegut is a hero.

Cat's Cradle is a hilariously depressing end-of-the-human-race fable set on a failing tropical island. Bokonon created a religion for the natives to get their minds off their miserable conditions. The religion, called Bokononism, became part of the hippie canon. In the late sixties everyone was fimiliar with the concepts of karass, or granfaloon, and especially boko-maru.

If you're depressed these days watching religious fundamentalists tear up the world, find solace in Bokononism, a practical religion that makes sense in a world that's going to hell. Read Cats Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut, today!

Terry Southern wrote a great synopsis at the time.

Eugene Wallingford has pulled together the sayings and writings of Bokonon into a sort of Bible.

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