@Rethink,

I understand where you are coming from. A dog barks at a tree for a reason. Normally something is up there.
I have never seen a dog bark at a tree without a reason.

But i understand what you are trying to say and that is, it is useless to do both. But i don't think so.
Prayers have been answered in all religions. You hear lots of stories of it. My own life involves a supplication
that was answered. I know it still leaves a lot of gaps to be answered. Prayers are harmless anyways and free.
But it cannot be as simple as "God give me money" and hey bingo you get a million dollar in your account.
Or "God cure all the sickness" and bingo everyone is cured. Or "God give food to the hungry" and bingo everyone
have free food on the table. If you think about it, Society will fail to function if god worked like that.
The society we humans have created makes a living out of sick people, crime, hunger. There will be a chaos in
the whole economic system. We humans have made life this way.
My own belief is that prayers do get answered in God's world. When we humans have changed the way we live,
prayers will be answered. Faith and Love are missing from this world. I also used to think like you until i
realised that we humans have left no space for a loving god. 
 
Religion understands the problems in life through original sin, karma, etc. There is an attempt to understand
the suffering in life. These theories do seem far fetched to a logical mind, but then you try to reason it out
in a spiritual way, these things do make some sense.

Personally, i believe the truth lies in a mix of all these explanations. 

PS: I can just imagine Alternate bro sulking and thinking "there he goes again being agnostic and talking like a theist"...haha