What if brown-outs were caused by doubt?

[myrthman]

**I had this idea when I was struggling to both lower my monthly electric bill and keep up with paying what I'd already consumed.**

What if you could adapt a Bible, say with a "faith engine", to be an electric generator that you could physically plug a house, or heck, even a city, into and power it indefinitely? There would have to be some restriction because a Bible is just a book until you mix it with faith. What if all the electricity you could possibly ever need was available for only 1 easy payment of $49.99 (to buy a faith engine adaptor to install in your favorite Bible) but to keep the lights on you had to always always always BELIEVE? A little unbelief and the lights flicker. A negative confession that works its way into your heart and you're in the dark for several hours. Leave the Bible unopened and unstudied for a while and you have to have the power company come out and reconnect you.

I think this would be quite cool, quite fun, and quite the inspiration to get people to learn what God has written. What do you think? Would you read it?

[Jeff Gerke]

That's very cool. You could create a whole economy based on physical manifestations of metaphysical realities. If faith can power cities and doubt can cut the power, what would atheism do? And what other non-physical things could have physical effects in the real world? Love? Hate? Jealousy? Envy?

You wouldn't want to get too simplistic, a la Hinds Feet on High Places, but bringing the unseen into the seen would be cool.

I read a fantasy series once in which a person's nightmares became real at night and you spent every night not sleeping but fighting off the manifestations of your unconscious. That was cool.

Jeff

[Divides the Waters]

What a fascinating concept! I'm glad that I'm not bound to that system, though; I have a feeling I would spend many chilly nights.

Sad statement. Makes one think.

Did you ever see Something Wicked This Way Comes? For some reason, I see a Ray Bradbury style setting as perfect for this sort of story. It sounds a little like Monsters, Inc. meets This Present Darkness....

[Jeff Gerke]

Great analogy, divides.

Jeff

[Divides the Waters]

Taking this into a fantasy milieu, you could almost make this into a sort of Christian mystic battletech notion; instead of having it power the house, perhaps your faith/belief could power your armor (armor of God, get it? ha!). When the "magic" of belief fails, your armor weakens or disintegrates.

Hmmm....

[Therin]

That would be interesting. I was daydreaming along those lines once, something about material demons and whenever they're around, your armor appears, and if you lack faith, for exaple, your shield is weaker. There could be some interesting stories on this.

[myrthman]

Seems to me like Karen Hanc**k wrote such shields into Arena. I like the idea of applying an electric faith-engine to mech warriors. THAT would be something to read!

[Divides the Waters]

It's all yours, bud....