The phrase cloning Jesus took a big jump on our search logs last week.
It's hard to tell if this means a sudden genuine burst of public interest in the topic, or if some lonely wag is killing time by typing in the phrase over and over. No matter: it turns out there's plenty of weird information on this topic on the web.
Cloning Jesus is a classically confused Internet topic. The general notion is simple enough: given recent advances in cloning, certain parties now say they want to use bits of the Shroud of Turin to clone Jesus Christ. (We aren't taking an ethical position on this one way or the other, mind you.)
Thing is, it's nearly impossible to tell if the "official" sites are actually 1) official or 2) serious. Some pages are obvious gags, but that hasn't stopped various quasi-news organizations from keeping the ball rolling with more or less straight-faced stories. Even the Weekly World News gets into the act.
The Jacksonville News calls it a "Jurassic Park-style idea," which puts a frightening spin on the thing. If Jesus is coming back, let's at least not put Spielberg in charge of the job.
To confuse matters further, there's also a well-documented hoax e-mail going around with the subject line "It takes guts to say 'Jesus.'"
Well. Make of it what you will. But with all this in mind, maybe it's no surprise that a similarly dopey web hoax could make it into New York's senatorial debates.
