Google forays with a new open-source religion

Bolstered by its continued success in generating billions of ad dollars, strong brand recognition, the creation of an iPhone competitor (based on the Android platform), its forthcoming new browser (with long-term competitors being IE, FF, Safari, and Opera), Google has finally decided to offer its version of theology.

Google's PR department released this statement:

"It's going to be an open-sourced model that allows faith-followers to synergistically strengthen their core beliefs with a ubiquitous de-centralized deity. It's based on the OpenSocial API, which is the foundation for a host of successful web appliances, namely Orkut. We realized that in order to be true to the mantra 'don't be evil', we would need to create a new theological construct in order to legitimize more aggressive revenue-generating advertising models. In addition, we believe that we have something new to offer certain members of various demographics who find themselves removed or disconnected from reality.

As part of an extended development process, our team conducted focus groups with [among others] Second Life denizens, as well as individuals tinkering with cybernetic implants and found that while people enjoy their metaphysical experiences there is a certain degree of spiritual emptiness as we have not yet been able to reduce the human soul to a binary expression, nor digitally quantifying the aforementioned emptiness.

With much experimentation, we discovered as a way to accomplish these tasks, and in doing so, uncovering the means to similarly generate a host appliance capable of monitoring and upgrading soul programs, thereby improving the quality of virtual life. Sergey and Larry dubbed this host: DaemonLord, in a sentimental gesture to a long-lived family of processes well-known in those versed in computer science concepts.

Beta-users of DaemonLord will receive secure access to the development site, and complementary surgery to integrate proprietary mechanisms designed to facilitate the entry into the virtual environment, nicknamed Temple. As the user spends more time in Temple, his or her body would normally atrophy, however Google is committed to maintaining both a healthy body and virtua-soul, so initial testers will be configured with electrical stimulation in order to prevent physical decay.

We plan on maintaining DaemonLord and Temple by the revenue generated by users within the environment, as micro-transactions (similar to papal indulgences) and various implementations of the existing AdSense and AdWords platforms."

Needless to say, there's been some explosive responses from the general user community. Religious leaders have yet to release a formalized comment on the situation, but President Gee-dub did have these questions:

"So...if I snort some of that digitalized nose dust in that there etherland of pagan goodness, will it come up in my pee-pee test that I have to take for Uncle Dick every month?"

...and...

"Does this mean that I can hook up with Sarah Palin in this new-fangled Temple thang? I'm tryin' to talk Laura into a threesome! Man, that Sarah could moose-wrestle me into submission any Temple session!"