California Scientists Map God Genome

Davis, CA, July 22, 2010 -- Researchers at California's UC Davis announced today the successful completion of a three-year, highly secretive project to map God's genetic code. Originally commissioned by filmmaker James Cameron, who supplied the research team with holy genetic material on which to perform the study, the results of the God Genome project are expected to profoundly influence human conceptions of divinity and origin.

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"I'm of course thrilled that the UC Davis team were so successful in mapping God's genome," Mr. Cameron said at a press conference held this morning to announce the findings. "The information contained within God's genetic code will likely tell us a lot about ourselves, the universe, and the creator thereof, and may even lead toward valuable cures for certain diseases, an easy way to resolve pressing climate issues, and, potentially, the ability to rearrange celestial objects such as constellations in more pleasing or dramatic combinations."

James Cameron, known by most as the respected producer of epic films such as Titanic, The Terminator, and The Discreet Explosions of the Bourgeoisie, was thrust into an unusual spotlight when his documentary, "The Mystery of the Lost Vault of Jesus", co-produced with television personality Geraldo Rivera, aired on the Discovery Channel in 2007. The controversial film examined the recovery of remains believed to be those of Jesus Christ and family, including His presumptive Wife and Child, in a "lost tomb" in the East Talpiyot neighborhood of Jerusalem in 1980.

While agreement is still far from universal, there is now widespread acceptance in many quarters that the remains recovered from the tomb are in fact those of Jesus of Nazareth, also known as the Son of God, an important icon of the Christian religion and a key staple of the religious figurine manufacturing industry.

Mr. Cameron commissioned the mapping of the God genome shortly after the documentary's premiere. Progress on the project has been kept completely under wraps during the intervening time.

"The God genome we've derived from those specimens will pretty well blow any remaining skeptics out of the water," Mr. Cameron said. "It's like nothing here on Earth, even though it's really, really similar.

According to Dr. Clarence Darrow, a molecular biologist at UC Davis who led the God Genome team, the mapping process was comparatively straightforward.

"Sir Isaac Newton postulated as long ago as 1722 that God's genome – although he called it 'intrinsic essence', as the concept of DNA was still several hundred years in the future – would consist of four 'prime constituents' he called Deitine, Excelsimine, Universinine and Saviorine, or DEUS for short. It was an impressive intuitive leap, but Newton generally had two or three of those per week, especially if he got his afternoon nap," Dr. Darrow said.

"Surprisingly, though, the God genome is actually built of precisely the same building blocks as every other strand of DNA we've ever analyzed – a very long double helix formation of nucleotides comprising sequences of four paired bases: adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine. It seems divinity is all in the arrangement, which, we've noticed, is extraordinarily symmetrical and tidy in this case. Cleanliness being next to, and so forth."

Isolating God's own genetic material from the recombinant amalgam present in the material recovered from Jesus' tomb, however, required some initial tweaking.

"Every person, whether a blood relative of the Creator or not, has unique DNA that is formed by the fusion of two gametes, each of which contain half the genetic content of whoever, or Whoever, provided it," Dr. Darrow said. "The result, which is formed by genetic recombination during a process called meiosis, contains an unpredictable amalgam of genetic material from both parents. Or Parents, as the case may be."

"Luckily, the Hidden Mystery Vault or Lost Tomb or whatever it was that Cameron and Geraldo documented contained not just Jesus' remains, but also remains of a purported spouse and one or more offspring. Once we'd mapped those related genomes, we were able to reverse extrapolate the specific nucleotide chains that were intrinsic to Jesus, thereby allowing us to find the remains that belonged exclusively to God, using the following formula:

Where:

Jesus' recovered DNA = X,
Mary Magdalene's (purported wife of Jesus) DNA = M,
Judas' (purported child of Jesus) DNA = Y,
Jesus' extrapolated DNA = J,
and God's DNA = G

X + M = Y
Y - M = J
X - J = G

"This formula is based on the assumption, which we've verified experimentally, that God's genetic material is somehow not passed on through successive generations," Dr. Darrow said. "Which makes sense, since the Bible clearly identifies Him as a jealous God. You don't want to be envying your offspring – or vice versa – if they're just as omnipotent as you are. I mean, forget about Oedipus. We're talking epic battle here."

According to the UC Davis team, God's genome is similar in many ways to human DNA, but also similar – more so, in fact – to other living creatures.

"Based on our current computations, God's genome indicates about a 95.2% similarity to humans," Dr. Darrow said. "However, God's genetic material places Him at about a 97.2% similarity to trilobites, and 98.3% similarity to sheep. Which rather begs the question as to whether each species, such as geese, for example, may have its very own Goose Messiah. There's nothing to indicate any particularly special relationship between humans and the Creator."

Further analysis of the God Genome will be required, Dr. Darrow said, to isolate the specific nucleotide sequences for omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and other traditional godlike attributes. This is complicated by the fact that attributes, based on current research, are not generally concentrated in one contiguous string of bases, but may be the result of numerous, or even thousands, of short sequences spread hither and thither along the length of the DNA strand.

"Once we crack omniscience," Dr. Darrow said, "the rest should be a snap."

"Omnipresence is one that we're also particularly interested in, however, in that it may be that the property of omnipresence is intrinsic to the actual omnipresence of a specific nucleotide sequence. If we can conclusively determine that a specific string of A,C,G,T bases appear in the same order in every living species, and no other function can be postulated and verified for that sequence, then that's probably it. At least as far as the biological world goes. Assuming the existence of at least some tiny smidgen of DNA-bearing organic life in most nooks and crannies of the universe, and a faster-than-light-speed communication mechanism between them – instantaneous, actually – presumably based on quantum symmetry, that would probably be about as close to omnipresence as one would conceivably need."

A corporation formed by producer James Cameron together with a group of private equity partners has now patented the God genome, a spokesman said, "just in case it might come in handy for something sometime. Such as cloning."

"The ingredients are pretty simple," Dr. Darrow said. "If we can clone cows, dogs, and so forth, we can certainly clone God. But…."

According to Dr. Darrow, there may be risks – potentially serious ones—inherent in any attempt to clone God.

"Follow me closely here," Dr. Darrow said. "Since, as determined by certain irrefutable physical realities, time of necessity began at the moment of the Big Bang, that's the earliest point at which God could have been created. Before the Big Bang, no time for God. OK. So God must have sprung into existence at the same moment as the universe. The Big Bang could have been, and probably was, the catalyst for His creation. Or, and this is a very important point, vice versa."

"Therefore, if we use recombinant DNA techniques to clone a new god here at UC Davis, it's entirely possible that we will at the same moment spark a new Big Bang and the creation of a new universe. We haven't completed the calculations yet, but this would probably do some damage to, at the very least, our laboratory facilities, and possibly destroy the known universe, so we're going to tread a little carefully there. Still, it would be fascinating to explore the properties any newly cloned god might exhibit. We're still mulling."

Prior to undertaking a full-scale God-cloning exercise, Dr. Darrow said, the team plans to attempt smaller-scale hybrid experiments as specific god-like properties are isolated on the God genome.

"We're pretty sure we're zeroing in on a nucleotide sequence for omnipotence," Dr. Darrow said. "Once we've got it, we're thinking we might splice it into, say, a rodent, and create a little white omnipotent mouse. Or, as Mr. Cameron has suggested, an omnipotent movie producer."

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor