"Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either."

Reading the first few pages of Cat’s Cradle I could see why the book applied to our class. The narrator speaks of his religion, Bokononism, and its “bittersweet lies.” The first line in The Books of Bokonon, is “All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.” Then the narrator himself comments on how “anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either.”

Bokononism is not just a religion based on lies. It is also a religion that admits it is based on lies. It does not attempt to convince anyone that it can explain the phenomena of the world. For example, Bokonon creates a story for how the planets and moon came into being, but then immediately admits that the story is false. Bokononists are not made to believe in an underworld or heaven. They do not believe that they will ultimately be punished for their sins. They cannot actually believe in sin at all.

So what makes Bokononism useful? It makes people happy. It makes its followers feel like they are a part of something. When they perform the foot-touching ritual, “boko-maru”, with other Bokononists, they feel a special connection with another human being. The whole idea of a “karass” is that each Bokononist is part of a community. Bokononists all have important roles to fill in life and they cannot choose what they are or whether they will do them. They leave their lives up to fate.

After we watched the episode of Supernatural on Tuesday, we talked about how Sam and Dean were disturbed to find that they could not decide their own fates, that they were being manipulated by some higher power for his/her/its own designs and could not do anything about it. However, their situation could also be seen in a more positive light. They were significant in the important goings on in the world. They knew that their lives meant something. A goal had already been set out for them. They had a purpose in life.

People want to feel that their lives are worth something, that at some point in their lives they will accomplish something significant, that they have roles to fill. To a certain extent, many people want to feel that they are characters in a story. Plenty of times I have wished that I could be a character in a book or on a television show, having something important to accomplish and knowing with certainty that I had to do it, feeling a sense of satisfaction when it was over, and looking forward to my next adventure.

I would say that the main “foma” (fomum?) that The Books of Bokonon encourages is the idea that a person’s life always has a purpose.