Chapter 15 Summary and Analysis

Vonnegut preaches a napve sermon at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. For all their creativity, scientists cannot make dead people any deader. If hydrogen bombs were not after mankind, death - the absence of life - would be. There are fates worse than death, like Jim Jones' visions that drive his followers to drink Kool-Aid laced with cyanide. I

f the U.S. government ever faces a fate worse than death, there will be plenty of Kool-Aid, in the form of nuclear weapons. Suppose the U.S. gets rid of nuclear weapons and an enemy brings in the cruel Roman form of torture, crucifixion. If Americans were crucified, would they not wish they still had hydrogen bombs? The one person known to have been crucified in ancient times chooses to endure agony rather than to...