I pray in several senses, consistent with my beliefs.
I will at times send whatever positive energy I can muster out to anyone and everyone that needs it. I feel the energy, and the task is directing it without polluting it with what I guess I could call my “fatigue” energy (somewhat ironic, I guess, but even the universe slows down but never stops). I choose to believe this is beneficial, without having any firm evidence in favor of that conjecture (or against it, as far as that goes, since no natural laws are violated, in my understanding of how things work, according to our best models of reality). I choose to believe, not entirely without evidence, that applied consciousness has an organizing effect on the universe.
What I do not believe is that there is a God out there looking out for me.One does not have to celebrate many birthdays to observe that terrible things–cancer in children, car accidents, financial ruin–happen to genuinely decent people; not the ones who are secretly sinful, but actually decent people.
As I have often argued, pain is how we learn. Pain is temporary, in an eternal universe. It is impossible to say if some negative event will be good or bad. Even is someone dies, I believe in heaven, so I believe that they may well be the lucky ones, since their day of work is done for the time being.
When I pray, I pray to spirits of light. I believe that we are surrounded by positive beings, who exercise some small influence on events when they can. But we have to have already set up the sort of environment where their influence will work. God helps those who help themselves.
For myself, I normally only pray for two things: for courage, and for wisdom. I pray that whatever trouble comes down the pike that I can take it, that I can learn from it, and hopefully be clever enough to get out of it.
It occurred to me just this morning, that this is the prayer of a functional member of a self governing system. I have my own goals, and pray to be able to help myself. The opposite of this is “God, please take care of me and mine”. That is a dependent mindset.
I have known numerous people deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and one once told me that “The Will of Allah”, and work seemed to be inversely related. The more they said “it is the Will of Allah”, the less they worked. If you look at any Islamic society, you will see that the “Will of Allah” builds palaces and mosques, and precious little else. This is not the mindset of a self governing people, and certainly not of a prosperous one.
Religious belief, clearly, can be done in different ways. And large outcomes always depend on repeated small beginnings.