Doctors make the lame walk these days, to a great degree, and are even beginning to cure blindness.

Maybe God is just staying out of the way now.

RESPONSE:
You imply that empirical evidence is necessary to believe in prayer. You claim that you search for empirical evidence “to test THEIR truths.” But, have you searched for empirical evidence to support YOUR truths? Do you have any empirical evidence to support the need for empirical evidence? What empirical evidence do you have to support the view that all beliefs must be substantiated by empirical evidence?

In terms of using empiricism to test prayer, I cannot imagine such an idea originating from anyone that has truthfully been involved with Christianity for as long as you claim. Anyone that is familiar with Christianity understands that the church is not a monolith, and there is no singular agreed upon set of qualifications and method of prayer.

Anyone that is familiar with Christianity will immediately question the methodology used in your test. One group of Christians will ask, were those who prayed truly Christians? Do they have the vital type of relationship that is required for God to hear and answer their prayers? Were they praying in accordance with promises recorded in Scripture? They might give you a quote from James 5:16. “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” This might be followed by more questions. Did they confess their faults? Were the prayers effectual? Were the prayers fervent? Were the prayers conducted by a “righteous” person? Another group of Christians, such as the Roman Catholics might question whether or not the person lit a candle and prayed to the proper saint for the proper need. The Reformed Christian might simply question whether or not the prayers were in accordance with God’s sovereign will. Anyone who is as familiar with Christianity as you claim to be, should be familiar with differences and the long standing debates over those differences.

Ultimately, there is no way to satisfy all of the various prayer traditions of all Christians with one simple test. If you were truly involved in Christianity to the extent that you have claimed, then why don’t you know these things? FAIL!

Furthermore, the whole idea of skeptics, like yourself, being able to test for a miracle is more facetious than you can realize through your dark grey colored glasses. If there was a miracle staring you in the face there is high probability that you would attempt to label a different cause for the event based on the presuppositions of your worldview. For example, I am reminded of a widow that was praying for God to provide food for the evening meal for her family. An atheist living next door happened to overhear the widow praying and decided to trick her. He quickly drove to the grocery store and bought some groceries. Then, he placed them on the widow’s front step, rang the doorbell, and ran away. When the widow came to the door and found the food she began to rejoice and praise the Lord. The atheist came back around the corner of the house and scolded the poor widow. He informed her that God had nothing to do with the groceries because he (the atheist) had heard her praying, purchased the groceries, and placed them on her porch. The woman began to dance and shout. She said, “Hallelujah! God got me some groceries, and he used the devil to get them to me.”

The point is, the widow saw this as a miraculous answer to prayer, but the skeptic could not see it.
I would imagine that similar things would happen when skeptics test for answers to prayer in a hospital setting. The skeptic may blame all healing on the doctors and medicine. The person of faith may look at the same events and see God guiding the hands of the doctors in answer to prayer.