The News From Poughkeepsie - Day 5

April 26th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

A religious scientist manages to isolate the causes of mental illness and discovers that they were right the first time; it *is* caused by demons. The voices in the head? Demons. Self-doubt and hatred in depression? Little monsters that chew at your soul.

Sure, not a new idea by a long shot, but I’m not interested in the story of the scientist and her patient’s demons. I’m thinking BIG picture. What would this development do to modern religion? Would it take a step forward to unite with scientists to work out a cure or to perform an exorcism? Would they then work together to find scientific/religious reasons behind other problems in life? OR would they take a step backward, go back to stake burnings and primitive “healing” and would science lose funding and become an underground study? Or could it go a third way and, with the scientific proof of demons, would we find a way to communicate with them and therefore know more about Heaven, Hell, the metaphysical planes, and God(s)?

And does this mean some people with “mental illness” are instead possessed by angels?

I am interested in cause and effect. You can start a story with a cliche and then take it somewhere new, if you do it right. (Just don’t END it with a cliche…)

The News From Poughkeepsie is a daily blog post featuring an idea for you to take and do with what you will. Read more about it here. This post is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. You can take this idea, change it, make something new, and even make money off of it. All I ask is if you create something - anything! - that this post inspired you to make, please link back here.

There Are 3 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by Kimi on 28 April 2008:

    Thanks Mur! I needed this one badly! :) It will be slightly warped but I’ll be linking back to you soon!

  2. Comment by TheWritingSpider on 28 April 2008:

    I was just thinking this morning on my drive in of a sci-fi story that blended in more religion and I was thinking of how religion will evolve in the next zillion years and I just went on with it until I got to work…and here is this idea about religion and science…Hmmm…Very interesting indeed.

  3. Comment by Jared Kardos on 6 May 2008:

    Oooo, this one sounds interesting. I might work on that tomorrow. :D

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