The following text is from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer

Prayer is an effort to communicate with God, or to another deity or spirit, either to offer praise, to make a request, or simply to express one's thoughts and emotions.

The great spiritual traditions offer a veritable treasure trove of devotional acts. There are morning and evening prayers, graces said over meals, and reverent physical gestures. Christians bow their heads and fold their hands. Native Americans dance. Sufis whirl. Hindus offer sacrifices. Orthodox Jews bob their heads back and forth. Quakers keep silent. Among these methodologies are a variety of approaches to understanding prayer:

• The belief that the finite can actually communicate with the infinite;
• The belief that the infinite is interested in communicating with the finite;
• The belief that the prayer is listened to and may or may not get a response;
• The belief that prayer is intended to inculcate certain attitudes in the one who prays, rather than to influence the recipient;
• The belief that prayer is intended to train a person to focus on the recipient through philosophy and intellectual contemplation;
• The belief that prayer is intended to enable a person to gain a direct experience of the recipient;
• The belief that prayer is intended to affect the very fabric of reality itself;
• The belief that the recipient expects or appreciates prayer
  
  The existence of prayer is attested in written sources as early as 5000 years ago. Anthropologists believe that the earliest intelligent modern humans practiced something that we would recognize today as prayer.
  
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