Sin In The Book Cat's Cradle

“What is sin?”(1), Dr. Hoenikker asks in the book “Cat’s Cradle.”(2) The Christian Bible describes sin as, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.” (3) Sin has become the creator of fear throughout history. The fear that God will punish those who sin but, that fear is a false threat to control people. Sin creates the illusion that the universe is based on morals, when in fact it is completely amoral.

Sin is a lie. It is a way for rulers to create and have order in society. What is sin? Sin is what a pastor on Sunday persuades a group of people to believe in because they can’t make decisions

for themselves. People are scared of questions, individualization, and going away from tradition. What does that create? Religion. Religion was created by ancient leaders to have a way to bring their society closer together. For people to believe in something, have order, and similar views. Religion and sin are nothing but ways to keep people in line. It creates cookie-cutter people that all follow the same rules, believe in the same thing, and shame the same people. Morals are a man made concept. There is no good and bad in the universe, there is only alive and dead. The world that is accepted as reality does not care whether people do what others approve or disapprove of. Right or wrong means nothing. No one in “Cat’s Cradle” understands that more than Dr. Hoenikker. He had such an advanced level of thinking that he could not be fooled by society. Dr. Hoenikker understood that religion and sin are false hopes. Dr. Hoenikker secretary, Naomi Faust, said “he (Dr.Hoenikker) bet I couldn't tell him anything that was absolutely true. So I said to him, 'God is love' ... He said, 'What is God? What is love?”(4)
The universe is amoral. There is no truth or lie, or right or wrong. However, society isn’t ready to believe that. In the book, ice-nine represents the idea of morals and religion. Dr.Hoenikker knew that the knowledge or release of ice-nine or the truth about it would destroy society. Just as ice-nine froze the Earth, if morals were accepted as a harmless untruth, the world would freeze. People could not handle the freedom of being able to live without judgement.
Society has been lost in a cloud of religion for thousands of years. It has been lost in morals and rules. Robert Ingersoll once said, “Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.”(5) It puts the human race into a cell that restricts it from moving forward. Dr. Hoenikker, through the act of creating the atomic bomb and ice-nine proved that the world was not fully ready for science and an amoral universe. Society today is not able to comprehend a life without morals and religion. People can not find comfort in the unknown and what it means to be truly free.