As I've said before, I'm not a religious person, but I could see how prayer or meditation could calm someone enough to do what needs doing. If someone's faith gives them strength, then they should run with that, so long as they're not using faith as an excuse for inaction or helplessness.

I think I pissed a few people off in the TaiChi tribe when I said I don't think there's anything spiritual about meditation. Physiologically speaking, there's no difference between meditation and self-hypnosis. For the sake of not having to re-write the same thing again, I'm just going to paste what I said:

" This may surprise you, but there isn't much difference (if any) between meditation and self-hypnosis. In both states, your mind drops from the active intelligence ranges of the alpha and beta waves (8-12+ Hz) into the theta range (4-8 Hz). Theta waves have been shown to promote complex behaviors (learning, memory, creativity, etc.), so in reality, it isn't the meditation or taoism that benefits you, it's just the relaxed state initiating the theta wave pattern. When you're hypnotized, you're much more open to suggestion-- if you're actively thinking about things like "action through inaction" or the nature of all things around you, these ideas are going to seep into your subconscious. It's fundamentally the same approach that hypnotherapists take when helping people break bad habits like nail biting or smoking. "

Prayer, on the other hand, is spiritual and not physical because it is communication with God. It isn't the act of prayer that is important, it is the relationship. It doesn't matter if you bow your head, kneel on a rug, wear a hat, chant, dance, or flog yourself with a bag of oranges-- it is acknowledging God's power an authority and coming to him with an open heart that gives prayer power. God isn't a Swiss army knife you can take out of your pocket whenever you need a little help. Neglecting your relationship with God and only turning to him when you are in trouble is selfish behavior, trying to use God for your own gain. It should be the opposite-- allowing God to use you for his purposes. Until prayer is approached in the proper manner, it is a waste of time. If you're starving in the middle of the woods and pray, "God, if you send me a nice juicy steak right now, I promise I'll go to Church every Sunday from now on...", your heart is not in the right place to begin with because you are trying to bargain with the Almighty.

So, yeah, I think it is important and we as humans need it... it's a core part of our existence. But whipping out the ol' prayer book when the chips are down with no real faith that God is listening is no more useful than a pouch of dehydrated water.

There was terrible flooding in Louisiana. There was a 60 year old deacon of the largest church in the area that was the most devote and faith filled man any of the church members ever knew. His home was in the heart of the flood area. One of the church members pulled up in his large SUV with a large trailer towed behind to find the decon sitting on the porch watch the torrential rain falling, seemingly unconcerned. "Deacon let's load all your most precious things into the trailor and get you out of here before the flood gets worse.", screamed the man over the driving rain. The deacon calmly replied, "You just take care of your own. The Lord will save me."
As the flood waters got up to his porch another church member pulled up in a boat and called for the Deacon to get in and he'd take him to safety. "Don't concern yourself. The Lord will safe me." So seeing other needing help the man in the boat went to help them.
The flood continued and the deacon climbed up on his roof and waited and called upon the Lord. "Lord I streadfastly KNOW you not let this flood kill your humble servent."
Just then a helicopter flew over his roof, came back and hovered and lowered a line with harness for the deacon. He waved them off yelling "The Lord will save me. In this I have NO DOUBT. Quit tempting me with rescue from Earthly sources." The helicopter pilot seeing others in the distance needing help decided not to argue and save who he could.
The flood continued un abated and the deacon was swept away in the waters and was drowned.
He went to Heaven and was sorrowful and even a little cross. God looked down at him and asked, "What troubles you my old friend?"
"well sir it is just that I told everyone that would listen you would save me from that flood and I still died. I mean I'm happy to be here but I feel I had more work to do for you on Earth."
"You feel I let you down? But I sent a friend in a SUV, a friend in a boat and finally the State Police in a helicopter."

In any good survival book or class they mention the Rule of Threes; for those who haven't come across this yet:

You can survive:
- three minutes without air
- three hours without shelter
- three days without water
- three weeks without food
- three months without love

It seems that in extended survival scenarios, many people who manage to take care of shelter, water, and food well enough to sustain themselves indefinitely tend to lose their will to keep applying that much effort unless they feel they have something to live for, a family, spouse, or other loved ones waiting for them back home.

So while it might seem esoteric to discuss spirituality in a survival context, even the experts agree that's a strong component. For one person it may be God, for another their wife, but whatever form it may take for different people, some connection to something outside yourself seems essential for long-term survival.

You can't really prove that God intervenes to save someone in a horrible situation but you can't prove that he dont either. I guess they call it faith cause there's no real proof of the man upstair's. All we have to go by is a book that is a gazillion year's old. I don't push my faith on anyone but I get tired of some political radical's mocking it and trying to do away with it because their veiw's dont win at the ballot box. Beleiving a higher power can give a person the strength to overcome tough obstacles, will definately give a person confidence in a survival situation. God gives people free will and I'll never deny God's existence because I beleive everything that is here, he created, I'm just passing through. In a survival situation you could say God provides the plant's and animal's to harvest and gave us the brain's to learn to do it. If we didnt take the time to learn we shouldnt blame God when we die. I guess we wont have any solid evidence of god's existence unless a biblical apocalypse suddenly start's, or we die.

Well without going into details which would probably bore some here, I believe in Devine Intervention. I believe God gave us brains and common sense for a reason too though.