News Just In:

Theists from all religions are having increasing difficulty making their prayers heard, churches report. God seems to be acknowledging far fewer prayers today than just a few decades ago.

Vatican Scientists claim that this problem is due to the accumulation of "space junk" in low-earth orbit. With the dramatic increase in communications satellites being launched, the earth is slowly being surrounded by a halo of high-tech detritus that is interfering with the clear transmission of prayers. It is even suspected that some satellites are deploying "prayer panels" as well as solar panels, to absorb some of the power of prayer to facilitate the broadcast of red hot pornography to Eastern Europe. Leading religious figures are outraged.

Metallic satellites and particles of junk spin through space at thousands of miles an hour. When these intercept an outgoing prayer they can cause it to break up, scattering into countless unintelligible fragments, shooting off into space or back to Earth. Solar panels cause the biggest problems - these large, flat sheets can sometimes reflect whole prayers back to Earth. We have recently received reports from christians who have had prayers accidentally answered by Ganesh, the Hindu elephant-headed deity, involving odd messages about sticky buns and peanuts! This sort of confusion cannot be allowed to continue.

Part of the problem seems to be the increase in numbers of believers, and the increase in prayer frequency. Catholic banning of contraception has been highlighted as one possible cause for the increase in christians, and Islam is one of the fastest growing religions today. Muslims are required to pray five times daily towards Mecca (pictured). Taking into account the different time-zones around the world, this means that Mecca receives massive doses of prayer radiation round the clock. Most other religions pray either directly to their God, to a local or household representation of their god, or just generally towards the sky.

To accomodate this increase in Islamic prayer intensity, plans are being put together to build Mecca II and Mecca III, possibly in central Europe and northern America, in an attempt to spread the load (possibly only during peak periods such as special religious occasions). Muslims interviewed today were not happy with the idea, and said that they would continue praying to the one true Mecca. If this view is common, then other options must be considered, such as heatsinks or other cooling systems.

The various Heavens have been consulting with each other to find an interim solution, and one possibility is the creation of special "Routing Angels" stationed below the layer of refractive junk. They will either transmit the prayers through safe "windows", or batch them up for bulk delivery during quiet periods. This could cause noticable delays for the devout, much like talking to someone via satellite-linkup, or even having to wait several hours for a response. This has obvious health implications for those praying over the sick and dying. What sort of compensation scheme will be set up for deaths caused by slow prayer-response?

There have even been rumours (unsubstantiated at this time) that Hell may be commandeered, cooled down, flushed out and used as an administration facility for dealing with prayers. This raises further logistical problems, however : Where will all the damned souls go? How will it affect local volcanic activity? How deeply into the Earth's Crust are prayers able to penetrate? How should people be trained in praying towards Hell?

These questions and more will answered in our special broadcast :- "Should God Go To Hell?"