As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will see in prayer all action. I don't care if you're an atheist, an agnostic, a fundamentalist or something in between. We all pray. There's an old saying that there are no atheists in foxholes, and in this day and time, when so many of us in the gay and lesbian community are under seige, we are all praying.
Prayer is a form of hoping for the best.
It is our feeble attempt to try and exercise some manner of control of the chaos that surrounds us. The atheist may not pray to God, but she sure does consciously hope that things will be okay, that everything will work out, and that, in the end, good will prevail. Consciously hoping for things is prayer. The texts I quote above are hard texts to tackle. Both Emerson and Jesus challenge us to pray honestly.