A roofer was near the ridgeline of a large barn hammering in shingle nails when he slipped and started sliding inevitably toward the eve.
"Oh Lord Jesus save me please!" Just then his pants snagged upon a protruding nail and he abruptly stopped sliding. "Never mind Lord, the nail caught me."
I was carted along to Sabbath School every week during my formative years. I took Bible studies from several religious organizations and studied the Bible in College. Along the way I learned how many organized religions change their positions on doctrine with the times in order to keep the pews filled and the coffers full. I learned how various sects cling to one verse or chapter or even book of the Bible and use that segment to ignore other sections.
I remember a revelation when I was 12 years old. I was playing out in a 18 inch tall alfalfa field when I realized I had lost my one and only first ever pocket knife recently received as a birthday present. I was kneeling in the dirt and had not moved since I had the knife in my hand.
And I remember praying. "Show me my knife. Help me find it and I will believe forever" No, at that time, as a twelve year old child, I did not believe. I wondered, but did not know.
And eventually after bending over each bunch of alfalfa and straining the dirt through my fingers in a circle as large as I could have possibly dropped the knife. I did find it. I breathed a sigh of relief. And then I sat and thought about what had just happened.
Being a rational, rather than an emotional child, I concluded that it was my dedication to the search. A thorough and methodical sifting of the possible terrain in which it had been lost. There was no devine intervention.
This lead to a life of questions and doubt. Eventually, before I graduated High School, I concluded there was no evidence of any form of deity. Oh, yes, until my mid-twenties, I sat through Sabbath School. I read the lessons and could regurgitate all the proper answers. But it was no more than a mental exercise, and an opportunity to socialize with the young pretty single ladies.
From the time I was six years old, I had read mythology from many cultures, and I learned to recognize Judeo Christian stories to be equatable to Roman, Greek, Norse, and Arab mythology.
There is much wisdom in the Bible. To live by the laws of the Bible is to live cooperatively as a society. There is much real History recorded in the Bible, but it is mixed with the mythology of the oral traditions. And there is much in the Bible which is only there to perpetuate The Priesthood and keep the Priests fat, happy, and sometimes even well bedded.
None of the previous paragraph proves the existence of any god, or the deity of the man known as Jesus of Nazerath. It does prove the old Jewish priests were wise and calculating and had thousands of years to hone their stories for greatest effect.
So, to the OP. No, I do not believe prayer changes the odds in the outcome of any situation. I do not deny that their are beings in the Universe with higher abilities than I or with more knowledge than I. I do deny that such a being has any influence upon my life, nor knowledge of my existence. And that being must conform to the laws of physics, just as you and I must.
As I am experiencing Heaven right here on Earth in the present time. I have no need to believe in an afterlife. When the electrons quite flowing in the brain, consciousness fades, and that which makes us human rather than inanimate matter ceases to exist. We are done and gone, never to exist again.
What is the proof of this? What a ridiculous question. Of course no one has ever actually died, actual brain dead, total cessation of neural activity, and then told us what is on the other side.
So there is no proof. But I do have FAITH.
People who choose to brew up their own storms bitch loudest about the rain.
