John "Giok" McKenzie,
"I will never write a novel 'How I learned to Love George Bush'"
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IT CAN BE DONE and done well...
However it would be more controversial than the D'Vinci Code and a must read for the CIA.

First link 2 ideas:
http://www.baptiststandard.com/2003/4_28/pages/hardwired.html
and
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1139
to make a bio tech politico-religious thriller that brings Invasion of body politic snatchers to a whole new level.

NOW some required background information...

I thought of a screen play based on the ACTUAL life cycle of a single cell organism by the name toxoplasmodium ghandi. It was discovered that it lives in rodents but can sexually reproduce ONLY in the intestines of cats. However any cat will do, be it a Tabby, a Bobcat or a Lion.

Cats eat rats so at first glance this less than remarkable life cycle would not raise eyebrows. But on a second look, the way in which this toxoplasmosis guarantees its journey into a cats stomach is positively shocking, disturbing and beyond science fiction. If you have ever changed a cat box you too may have contacted toxoplasmosis ghandi and have probably heard that pregnant women should not touch a cat box.

What this little ghandi does is travel to the mouse's brain. It settles in only one location of the brain, the Amygdala. Some authors have postulated that the Amygdala is the god center of the brain in that it seems to control a worshipful behavior in man but be that as it may, the plasmodia in the rat brain does something remarkable.

Toxoplasmosis ghandi forms cysts in the rodent's Amygdala that produce a protein which causes an irresistible urge for the rodent to in a sense worship cats. Now instead of running away from the scent of cat urine or droppings the rodent feels some kind of pleasure and awe to the point that the rodent will seek out a cat and stand motionless before the cat...any cat. One could almost say the infected rat worships the cat. One chomp and it is on its way to reproduce in the cat's gut.

The amygdalae send impulses to the hypothalamus for important activation of the sympathetic nervous system, to the reticular nucleus for increased reflexes, to the nuclei of the trigeminal nerve and facial nerve for facial expressions of fear, and to the ventral tegmental area, locus coeruleus, and laterodorsal tegmental nucleus for activation of dopamine, norepinephrine and epinephrine.

The cortical nucleus is involved in the sense of smell and pheromone-processing. It receives input from the olfactory bulb and olfactory cortex. The lateral amygdalae, which send impulses to the rest of the basolateral complexes and to the centromedial nuclei, receive input from the sensory systems. The centromedial nuclei are the main outputs for the basolateral complexes, and are involved in emotional arousal in rats and cats

There is currently no evidence that our brains can become infected with plasmodia cysts in the Amygdala the way rodents do.
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The screen play opens following a small cat wandering through a temple in ancient Egypt where people have a cultural affection and reverence for cats who rid their granaries of rats.
One night an old priest notices a strange encounter between an "infected" mouse offering itself submissively to a cat...He looks deeply into the mouse's eye and makes a connection to people who are in closest contact with cats, and the look in their eye during worship. We see the old priest write down his observation on Papyrus in the Library of Alexandria. Flames fade to black.

A rapid collage of scenes in which shamanistic secrets are passed down through the ages like sacred mushrooms or intoxicating incense smoke, wine or the eating of various sacraments spans the ages and ends with a close up dramatic scene of a modern mouse walking up to a housecat as if in a trance and BAM!

The modern day story begins in a Charlotte NC University bio chemistry lab. A PHD dissertation regarding specialized Plasmodium cysts in the Amygdala of rodent brains effecting behavior and leads to looking at cadaver brains for such cysts. In a suspenseful scene the grad student gets some living human Amygdala cells. Only after a simple heat modification of the plasmodia does it infect a living human Amygdala cell.

When an accidental needle stick creates a peculiar religious experience of reverence and submissiveness to authority by a very sexy grad student with her professor the plot thickens. Soon the professor smells a weapon in her work and contacts the DOD. Eventually the President of the United States is advised by a think tank of a new way to garner unheard of support from the people.

The final scene is of a previously despised President before millions of adoring worshipers in awe, including Sen. Leahy, Hillary, Al Franken and Roger Moore.
(BAM!!!! --> the same sound effect that was heard at the start of the film between the cat and mouse)
fade to red, white, blue and black.

Locations: University lab NC, a Mega Church in Lynchville VA, the Human Genome Research Center in Rockville MD, FOX news desk, a Coca Cola bottling plant in TX, the Washington DC mall, the Supreme Court

Characters: The grad student, friends and protagonists, the lawyers and judges, the DOD, the religious leaders of today, a bio anthropologist in Egypt, the Heritage Foundation, the President of the United States and advisors.
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The movie can present controversial scenarios and pose powerful questions such as;

Is God worship merely a brain infection?

A vaccine program becomes the target for religious zealots, as an attack on God himself.

Is an evangelical denunciation of the research and violence against scientists justified?

Does the cure take away a meaningful and pleasurable religious experience? ("Plasmodia is an act of GOD" A case argued by the Pat Robertson Law School)

A Bob Jones research program produces a more infectious strain that is soluble in Coca Cola and creates severe automaton behavior followed by an intentional "outbreak" in Washington DC just as the Supreme Court gets the case.

Does the intentional spread of the disease amount to an attack upon the civil rights and free will of individuals?

Indigenous people are found to have been infected in the warm climates of Jerusalem, Mecca, Kabul and Islamabad, perhaps for millennia.