Where Science, Politics, and Religion Come Together

In Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, topics such as religion, science, and politics are challenged against the reader’s thoughts of how these topics should be perceived in reality, outside of the novel. The ultimate themes of religion and politics intertwine in the novel to create Bokonism--a dominating religion that appears to defy normal boundaries that religions have. These three topics come together to create a novel that has many people fearing for their lives and following orders until the end of the novel when science, religion, and politics are ignored and the survivors become selfless. If only two of the topics were presented, the plot of the novel wouldn’t have been as strong as it is with all three topics challenging and enhancing one another.
As strong as the topic of science appears, I feel as if the topics of politics and religion dominate the novel. Science appears in Cat’s Cradle as a threat to society as opposed to something that is honored and used to improve society. Unfortunately, the creation of ice nine was ultimately used as a weapon instead of something for innovation. Things created could be used to better the world, destroy the world, or enhance an aspect that doesn’t need much help, as showed in Kevin Hoover’s YouTube video on the blog. I feel that science has a significant impact on politics in the novel, but not in actuality. Scientific inventions caused the uprisal of Bokonon, a powerful leader, that essentially creates a religion around himself, forcing people to fear and praise him. Vonnegut channels the reality of religion and the impact it has upon people that worship, sin, and don’t believe, putting them all in competition with one another to debate who is correct when nothing can actually be proved. Even if a topic is presented to people that do not get along, like in society, groups of people with similar thoughts and ideas join together to create strong alliances in order to overpower another group of people that they oppose. The same thing happens in politics when numerous groups do not agree and fight to be the more dominant culture that is chosen to influence a large culture. The three main topics in Cat’s Cradle involve a higher power dominating and influence the minds of their subjects, giving them uncontrollable power. If ice nine was not created, Bokonon would have felt the need to become more of a tyrant than he already was, increasing the amount of struggle he had in politics. Challenging a higher power such as a religion stirs up problems amongst people that live together, as does religion. Science is generally factual and can be proven, unlike most of religious topics, which is why different religions are formed such as Atheism and Agnosticism, defying the norm of worship. The main topics of science, religion, and politics all complement each other and stretch the minds of the readers to make comparisons to things that occur in everyday life. While others focus more on politics, they realize that there are different candidates because they do not have the same religions or views on religion and others have different views on science and how it should be accented in society and altered for the betterment of the human race.
Without topics that question each other and the roles they play in a community, state, or a country, no advances would be made to strive for greater things and more awareness. Even though politics, religion, and science compliment one another, they also challenge the people in Cat’s Cradle to think differently and more efficiently as well as people in reality. I feel as if these topics were chosen by Vonnegut because they were obviously tied together, but also a bit complex to piece together their similarities and differences, forcing the reader to relate different situations in the novel to situations that occur in real life.