Reply #5: Vonnegut is not a particularly religious man [View All]

[shrike]

at least not that I know of. But his book, Slaughterhouse Five, (one of my favorites) deals with free will vs. fate, among many other things.

I remember the aliens -- who visit Billy Pilgrim -- and their puzzlement with the human idea of free will. No one else in the universe but Earthlings, they say, believes in free will.

It can also be a philosophical point, I suppose; how much free will do we have; are some "born" to be bad? I've even heard some scientists theorize that some are "born" to their fate via the bad luck of genes. Though I suppose all that is far afield from what Ms. Rudolph is talking about.

The woman must live with the fact every day that she produced such a monster. I suppose people do (and say) such things to get them through the night.