Influence vs Control

 This past Tuesday, we discussed how if people believe that everything is controlled by something which an individual has no influence over, then that person cannot play a casual role in the world or whatever is being controlled. But, then we also said that people can play a role in life when everything is not controlled. These statements really got me thinking- while this might be the obvious way of looking at life, is it the most sensitive? If people believe that life in general is under the total control of something and that nothing they do can change that, then why do people pray to God if they believe that He has control over everything. Are they just hoping to convince him with a persuading argument via their prayers? Or is this contradicting the earlier statements? Even if a person has no obvious control over something, most still like to think that they can, or might be able to, hold some sort of influence or power to change the controlling party. Perhaps this is why some people believe in creationism as opposed to evolution, because creationism gives people the opportunity to control their surroundings through God, while in evolution, things just happen. But then that also brings natural selection into question- but since we seemed to have decided on Thursday that we do not need natural selection for evolutionary change to occur, I guess there is really no argument for it.