I am not saying that this doesn't encourage passivity, but it doesn't necessarily lead to it. There is a sort of schizophrenic believing-yet-not-believing that goes on. On some level most of them know that prayer most emphatically does NOT "change things", at least not with any reliability, and they have in practice more of a "trust but hedge your bets" ethos about it. Shooting off a short prayer is like a reflexive "insurance policy" that usually doesn't pay out but costs little so what the hell.

My father believed in prayer but what he actually modeled for me was hard work, persistence, endurance, and curiosity. He had a sixth grade education, came from a farm family of 12 children, but mastered all manner of dark arts including metallurgy and stress equations and was a highly respected aircraft mechanic / rebuilder and instrument-rated pilot. And he demonstrated love and caring to me in so many ways.

It's just not as simple as "people teach their children to pray, therefore they don't give them any life skills, wittingly or not".

What's more disturbing is when people give thanks for being "spared" in a horrible storm or fire or some such, implying that god chose other people's homes to wipe out. This leads to a sense of smugness and moral superiority which is totally undeserved; a sense of being "chosen".

It also bothers me when people pray to be cured of diseases. If they're not cured, what does that say about their wish-granting god? Did they not pray hard enough? Or is God just a dick for not granting their wish?