We need a reference guide to Gods. I checked everywhere; on the net, at libraries...I even spoke with a Pastor at a nearby church. The answer was the same regardless of the source - there is no reference guide to Gods. Granted, this is not a matter of any importance to most people, but the prevailing lack of interest is more a matter of ignorance than preference. In general, people believe in one God - their God. However, if you stand on a busy street corner and ask people what God they worship, you will wind up with a list of Gods that rivals the telephone directory in its enormity.
   These are but a few of the answers I solicited at my street corner research outreach:

   God (Father of Jesus Christ), Jesus Christ, Christ, God the Almighty, The Lord Almighty, My Higher Power, The Supreme Being, Yahweh, Buddha, Allah, The Lord, Jehovah, Ar-Raheem, Jah, Shangdi, Shen, Bhagavan, Ra and countless of others.

   Arthur C. Clarke suggests that there are 9 billion Gods, (In his short story aptly entitled “The Nine Billion Gods”) and I am inclined to agree. When George Allen (Before your time coach of the Washington Redskins) invoked the name of the Lord Almighty in his weekly pre-game locker room prayer, I began to wonder...
   Can we manage with anything less than 9 billion Gods when each is aligned with a seemingly infinite number of causes? How many prayers go unnoticed because the request is directed to the wrong God? God, as he is most commonly referred to in America, cannot possibly handle the volume of prayer he receives. Does he have the time or desire to work miracles for football teams, win wars and protect democracy and freedom for all people...everywhere? I think not, unless he has a staff of thousands to take care of the bookkeeping and carry out his will at the same time. The concept is mind boggling but now, after exhaustive research, I have the answer.

   It came to me after listening to George Bush. He invoked God the Almighty in his address to the nation about our war in Iraq. “And with God the Almighty at our side, we shall prevail,” he said. The obvious implication - God is on our side. Taking it a step further, we can assume that our God is more powerful than Allah. Just a thought, mind you, but are we setting the stage for something far worse than global thermonuclear war? What happens if Allah and God the Almighty go to war? Who are their allies and would they jump in? The consequences of an Entity war might include obliteration of mankind altogether. But I am straying from the subject, which in very simple terms is nothing more than an administrative problem.

   We rely on Gods for toys, automobiles, money, political matters, wars, disease, rain, sunshine, 26 professional football teams, teams from other sports, luck at poker; even horse races.
   “Where’s the wire...give me the wire...God, please...please God, just this once...please!” And not even a “Thank You, God,” when Knucklehead Smith crosses the finish a nose in front of Turtle Head.
   “I knew that horse would win...see here in his chart - I knew!”

  

   Yet we are quick to blame God when things go wrong.
   “Plaxico! God! How could he drop that?”
   “Goddammit! McNabb! Get out of the pocket!”

   “For God‘s sakes, the battery is dead!”

   The volume is staggering. No God that I know of has the staff or the administrative expertise to process and respond to trillions of requests. But...there is one solution to the problem which I believe is already in use. For lack of a better name, call it God’s Clearinghouse and Outsourcing Network.(GCON) Here’s how it works:
   A God receives a request from a fanatic Philadelphia Eagle fan. “God, please hear my prayer and allow the Eagles to beat hell out of the Giants next weekend.” God submits the request to GCON. GCON searches the NFL God file and forwards the request to Entity I.D. NFL9 - #87,623,509 who in turn relays the request to Entity I.D. PE5 - #315,423. PE5 turns the request over to an Assistant God. The Assistant God assigns the request to a Divine Technician who engineers a late game turnover that seals an Eagle victory. As you can see, the caseload volume drops from over 87 million to slightly more than 315,000 - manageable numbers for any competent Divine Technician.

   GCON is an administrative solution to a quantitative problem. It works, and the best part is that God (by any name) is spared the tedium and oppressive volume of prayer - freeing him to concentrate on matters of urgency affecting the well being of the humanity.