The Masons have it right: They believe in “something” bigger and better than humans, that there is a creator of some sort. Define that as you wish: A God to some, a spiritual fabric to others, but unless someone can answer all the questions of time, matter, and space then there is something out there that we do not understand.
Not all that pray to God pray to the God of the Jews and Christians. Many pray to whatever is out there. They are called Deists. They believe there is something out there but that something does not control or interfere in our lives.
There are lots of views on this, but the arrogance of atheists to denounce faith, and therefore religion, in place of their faith and religion in the belief of nothing but the laws of physics, is nothing but childish arrogance. It also concludes things not in evidence and therefore their conclusions are not as scientific as they believe themselves to be.
But when I look at Earth and the universe as they are today, they seem to me to be indistinguishable from the construct of a deist's impersonal God.
And the difference between a disinterested deist creator, and no creator at all, is not material to me.
Where we disagree is about prayer. I grew up learning prayer was about asking god for certain things. Forgiveness, divine intervention for good crops, prosperity, good tidings for family, peace, et al. Prayers make many feel good, but they are to no avail.
I was later told that prayer is just about communicating with an all-loving god and making personal contact. I ask again, what is the point? The entity behind ALL this seemingly just doesn't care about our little blue rock. It has no concern whether we live or die or are tortured or torn limb from limb. I'm a Veteran (not combat), but have witnessed too many atrocities committed on our children, not to mention the fact of innocents dying around the world every day.
The thing that has always befuddled me is, that if good guys go to Heaven, then why should we weep at their funerals? Shouldn't we be joyous that they went to Heaven? It's all BS and has caused and will continue to cause much misery. FYI, I am deist. I believe there is something behind the universe. Unlike Hawking, I don't believe it just appeared in a poof.