prayers

If a perfect being must answer prayers and prayers aren't answered (which seems to be the case), then it's kind of hard for a perfect being to exist.

So then if you want to show (e.g.) that he answers prayers, all you have to do is to argue that answering prayers is more perfect than ignoring them.

The names of the programs change, and the posters, colors and prayers, but it's all the same.

Muslims recite the Quran at least 5 times a day in the daily prayers from memory.

Friends and extended family come to visit, and they may choose to participate in the prayers.

The Egyptair flight had the crashing pilot saying prayers to Allah all the way down, captured on the voice recorder.

The ship always gets righted after a time, but not without the prayers and efforts of those who recognize the problem.

Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.

Note that even if you accept this proof, it says nothing about a god that answers prayers or otherwise intervenes in daily life.

For example, do prayers from strangers help someone recover from an illness?

I thought the same thing as you (answers prayers == more perfect), but figured proponents of the argument would ignore that.

On a related note, I was recently at a church service where the prayers had been changed to eliminate any pronoun for God.

But regardless if it's a "good" idea, blocking anything effectively is just hopes and prayers.

I know, the problem is that she was evidently entirely unaware that without knowing something about the probability of "answered prayers" absent the prayer jar, the simple "over half of all wishes came true" was entirely meaningless.