To Pray for a Prayer Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hummingbirds

Praying mantises are so named because they hold their long front legs in a position that looks as if they are praying, and the word "mantis" itself means a prophet or seer. But there is nothing holy about these vicious monsters. They lie in wait, ambush their prey, grasp it with their spiny legs and eat it alive. Butterflies and bees are targeted by larger mantises, and since hummingbirds visit the same plants as those pollinators, they too can become mantis meals.

Answer: Phoenix

Camelback Mountain is a 2700 feet (825 meter) granite and sandstone rock formation in the central Phoenix metropolitan area. "The Praying Monk" is located on the north slope of the mountain. It is about 100 feet (30 meters) tall, is made of red sandstone and is a popular feature for rock climbers. It received its name because the formation resembles a person praying when viewed at a distance.

Answer: Albrecht Dürer

The drawing was part of a sketch made for a triptych for a church in Frankfurt, Germany. The triptych was destroyed in a fire in 1729 but the sketch survived. It originally included the head of an apostle, but the paper was split in half at some point, and the picture of the hands became famous on its own.

Although the original work resides at the Albertina museum in Vienna, Austria, the image has been reproduced in sculpture, posters, tattoos and other forms of pop culture. Even Andy Warhol made his own version of it.

Answer: To convert Native Americans to Christianity

Praying towns existed in New England from around 1646 to 1675. Established by the Puritans, the towns provided an immersion program for the natives, who would give up their old way of life and rituals to become Christians. There were fourteen praying towns established in the Massachusetts and Connecticut area with nearly 4,000 Native Americans enrolled in the conversion program.

But in 1675, King Philip of the Wampanoag tribe led attacks on the colonists, and while many of the "Praying Indians" (as they were known) offered to fight on the side of the colonists, the Puritans had trust issues, and after the war, the praying towns were disbanded or absorbed into the English communities.

Answer: John Irving

"A Prayer for Owen Meany" was John Irving's seventh novel. His earlier novels included "The World According to Garp", "The Hotel New Hampshire", and "The Cider House Rules". In the story, John Wheelwright tells of his adventures with his childhood friend, Owen Meany, an unusual boy of diminutive stature, advanced intellect, a speech disorder to an injured larynx and a belief that he was an instrument of God.

The story covered Owen's life into adulthood, but when a film was made of the novel, it omitted so much of the later part of the book that Irving requested it be renamed so not to "mislead the novel's readers".

The film was released as "Simon Birch" in 1998.

Answer: Bob Hoskins

In the film, Martin Fallon (Mickey Rourke) had decided to leave his terrorist life behind after he accidentally blew up a school bus instead of military targets. A gangster offered him money and passage to the U.S. if he would kill off a rival gangster as his final job, and when Father Da Costa (Bob Hoskins) witnessed the hit, Fallon was ordered to kill the priest. Bob Hoskins had gained international fame as a gangster in 1980's "The Long Good Friday", and he won a BAFTA and an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his role as a call girl's driver in 1986's "Mona Lisa".

But he may have been best known for his role as the "toon" hating Eddie Valiant in 1988's "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".

Answer: Sri Lanka

"Save a Prayer" was released as a single in the U.K. and was Duran Duran's biggest hit at that point in time; it wasn't released as a single in the U.S. until 1985, however the video for the song was popular on MTV. The video could very well have served as a tourism campaign for Sri Lanka; it was filmed at several locations on the island, including at the ruins of a Buddhist temple in Polonnaruwa and at the rock fortress of Sigiriya. Filming with the elephants was a bit challenging.

At one point, an elephant on which drummer Roger Taylor was riding charged another elephant in an attempt to mate, an experience which Taylor described as "quite hairy for a moment".

Answer: Jerry Falwell

The drama featured Ned Beatty as Reverend Freddy Stone who was raking in $3 million a year through his tele-ministry. John Ritter portrayed Reverend Tom McPherson who took a summer job at Stone's empire and came to question whether Stone's followers' spiritual needs were being met by the lucrative ministry.

Not surprisingly, the film was a bit controversial, and Reverend Jerry Falwell tried unsuccessfully to prevent it from airing. The show did try to present a balanced depiction of televangelism by including a subplot involving another preacher (Richard Kiley) whose ministry operated without the excessive funding that Stone received.

The made-for-TV movie was different from the 1980 theatrical film of the same name which starred Dabney Coleman and dealt with a failing UHF television station which rebranded itself as a Christian station called "KGOD".

Answer: Mark Twain

The quote was credited to Mark Twain in the 1912 book, "Mark Twain: A Biography" (Albert Bigelow Paine); he reportedly made the quote "following an outburst". The quote sometimes appears in the abbreviated form of "Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer". Twain was credited with a few more quotes involving prayer including: "I don't know of a single foreign product that enters this country untaxed, except the answer to prayer", which was made in his "When in Doubt, Tell the Truth" speech in 1906, and "It is better to read the weather forecast before we pray for rain" which appeared in the 1927 book "More Maxims of Mark" (Merle Johnson).

As for profanity quotes, he had several of those!

Answer: Pepsi-Cola

Pepsico Inc. had paid Madonna around $5 million for a two-minute commercial and had agreed to sponsor her upcoming concert tour. The commercial had a worldwide debut during "The Cosby Show", and it featured an eight-year-old version of Madonna with her future self. Entitled "Make a Wish", the ad showed Madonna dancing and singing to the song "Like a Prayer" with a church choir.

The video for the song debuted the next day and wasn't quite as wholesome as the ad. It featured a murder, burning crosses and sexually-suggestive religious imagery, and it generated complaints from religious and family groups and even the Vatican. According to a spokesman for Pepsico, consumers confused the Pepsi ad with the video, and the uproar caused the company to yank the commercial and cancel their sponsorship of her tour, but they let Madonna keep the money.