Goodbye Kurt Vonnegut, You Were a Seriously Cool Dude

[katiesue]

He was one of my Dad's favorite's. If there is an afterlife perhaps they're hanging out?

[Alex]

If there is an afterlife, he's probably mildly pissed off.

[Alex]

Poking around to confirm my recollection that Vonnegut was an atheist (and thus my previous post) and I stumbled upon Conservapedia. I wondered what they had to say and it is just bizarre.

Vonnegut has described himself as an atheist,[1]

And then the footnote says "Some question whether Kurt Vonnegut was an atheist..." because surely Vonnegut wouldn't know.

And I liked this:

He attributed his atheism to having studied anthropology, yet he has been often respectful of those with faith, such as observing that "there were no Atheists in foxholes."

That footnote for that last part links to a quote from Hocus Pocus that reads, in full:

The sermon was based on what he claimed was a well-known fact, that there were no Atheists in foxholes. I asked Jack what he thought of the sermon afterwards, and he said, "There's a Chaplain who never visited the front."

I'm sure that Vonnegut was generally polite in the face of other's faith, but that quote doesn't say what the writer apparently thinks it says.

[Tref]

I found some interesting Vonnegut quotes on everything from C Students from Yale to the healing power The Beatles ... I believe this was taken from the Daily Show, though I can not be sure.


"Our leaders are sick of all the solid information
that has been dumped on humanity by research and
scholarship and investigative reporting ... They want
to put us back on the snake-oil standard ... What good
is an education? The boisterous guessers are still in
charge - the haters of information ... In case you
haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all
over the world as the Nazis once were."

I have one reality show that would make your hair
stand on end: 'C Students from Yale.' George W. Bush
has gathered around him upper-crust C students who
know no history or geography ... plus, most
frighteningly, psychopathic personalities ... smart,
personable people who have no consciences ... and
suddenly they are taking charge of everything ... They
might have felt that taking our country into an
endless war was simply something decisive to do ...
Unlike normal people, they are never filled with
doubts, for the simple reason that they don't (care)
what happens next."

"We are about to be attacked by Al Qaeda. Wave flags
if you have them. That always seems to scare them
away. I'm kidding. If you want to really hurt your
parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the
least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding.
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a
very human way of making life more bearable."

"Music makes practically everybody fonder of life than
he or she would be without it. The function of the
artist is to make people like life better than they
have before. When I've been asked if I've ever seen
that done, I say, 'Yes, the Beatles did it.' "