Evidence for Believing

[Belacqua]

why not simply feed the poor for instance ? How does prayer add to that if people should not expect help from ?

Yes, very reasonable questions....

As far as I know, a lot of believers think that God only is and acts through people. (Or if there are supernatural interventions, they are not anything we could count on.) So in this version, when people do good, they are embodying God. 

As far as I can tell, this is solidly in the Platonic tradition, in which the Good is an immaterial form which takes no action, but which people do their best to reflect or approach. Since at least the time of Augustine, Christianity has been largely merged with such Platonism. Remember, Nietzsche called Christianity Platonism for the people. In this view, God is the cause of things because we desire to approach his condition, not because he puts his hand down and pushes us. 

Here again, I don't see prayer in this tradition as a request to a listening person who might give you a present if he's inclined to. It is more along the lines of a "speech act," like a promise or an apology -- the act of uttering it changes the condition of the speaker. This is not supernatural (like god swoops down and changes you) but rather a commitment or relationship that you put yourself into. (Kind of the way uttering "I do" in the wedding is not so much a statement of fact as an act which changes your commitments.) If God is the "ultimate concern" as Paul Tillich says, or just the Good of Plato, it requires some act of will on our own part to align ourselves toward it, particularly if it goes against selfish inclinations. 

Anyway, this is my general sense of what the non-sky-daddy Christians say.

Out on interest do you pray, if so to which god (or gods), what do you pray for, and why ?

No, I'm not religious at all. I've made an effort to understand what people who are unlike me think about things. 

Long ago when I was desperately in love with a girl who didn't show much interest, I happened on an altar at an esoteric Buddhist temple at Miyajima that was dedicated to help with love matters. So I gave it a try. The anticlimactic (and fairly embarrassing) end of that affair is not something I can blame on any Buddha.