I'm truly agnostic. I really *don't know*. I don't have a
   problem with images of the man-in-the-sky. It's metaphors.
   People who pray know it's a metaphor. People on the outside,
   laugh and mock.

   Is it God? Psychology? Insanity? Doesn't matter to me any which
   way. I just know, I can say God, and perhaps it means collective
   consciousness. I can say collective consciousness and someone
   else calls it culture. I can call culture money, and money God
   and God, three little quarks pushing and pulling each other in a
   subatomic dance as notParticleWaves.

   Metaphors. Analogies. Words are only as magical as you make
   them, but the 'thing' that's BEHIND the words... the concepts
   that get you right in that 'spot' - the 'spot' that brews the
   concepts that form the words, music, art, whatever spews forth
   from the imagination - ... the actions that seem to be
   effective; and, well, prayer seems to work well for some people.
   Or meditation. Or Medication. So does positive affirmation. So
   does smacking someone else upside the head - that works for some
   ppl as well, although I don't recommend it. Perhaps prayer not
   as a wishing-factory, but rather, as a very powerful tool for
   Acceptance.

   And if all it is that prayer brings is acceptance and peace of
   mind, and the ability to cope with the crap in the world... well
   then, I don't have a problem with any of it. A psychologically
   well-adjusted human being is a good thing to behold; their
   belief system has little to do with it. Rather it is their
   APPROACH to life and themselves and everyone and everything in
   it.

   So God/no-God, Believe/No-believe? Doesn't matter much to me.
   Use it if it works. Don't use it if it don't. Change you mind at
   anytime if you like.