Prayer is seen as a defence against the power and influence of evil.
The person sees it that way.
God supposedly tells them to see it that way in perhaps a holy book or through a prophet. And prompts them too by inspiring them.
Their Jesus and their prophets claim to know from experience that prayer works and replaces evil with good. They even may say that prayer gets rabid demons out of the possessed.
God is implicitly seen as that which totally contradicts or is totally incompatible with evil. And explicitly as well.
DOES PRAYER AMPLIFY EVIL?
By positing an unimaginable good and immense - even infinite power - and invoking it, one is tacitly and often explicitly amplifying evil.
If that is what you want God for then evil is more important to you than him. Your negative approach to faith will harm.
It may be said that one can surely believe in an almighty God who is all-good and love him for him - instead of using him against evil.
Maybe yes but the risk of amplifying evil is too high.
Deep down people think that if they inflate how bad evil is that they can shock people out of it or to keep away from it. That approach really means, "I don't care what damage I do to them by misleading them like that and scaring them. I just want them to leave me and my loved ones alone." It is harming them to stop them harming. That will only lead to a subtle corruption where everybody ends up worse.
God supposedly inspires prayer and praying and makes it easy for he wants to be within reach. A prayer is so easy as if evil is so powerful and damaging that God makes the protection and the remedy so simple.
And we would declare prayer simple even if God didn't. We do that anyway and it only happens that God supposedly declares it too.
All this is doomed to do harm for giving evil a strong image means rather than ruin it one gives it a more palatable outlet
It is concerning that prelates, monarchs and political powerhouses think that God invites them to pray and inspires the content. All prayer is ultimately a cry for supernatural guidance. In practice that means persons are ready to take their own notions as guidance from God. They may not have enough faith to do untold harm with that - but what of the principle? It is luck and their lack of faith we can thank when there is no disaster. We should not trust them for they may act on a "divine" prompt tomorrow. Such characters have no right to try to influence state affairs - secular must mean secular. They don't have the honesty to argue that prayer "supports" and "directs" them when they assist in state decisions.