When a person prays.....

[lightgigantic]

Are they not demonstrating a lack of faith and confidence in Gods omniscience and capacity to do what he considers to be right?

There are different types of theistic practioners ( and I don't mean hindu's christians and muslims).
They are characterized by their levels of purity - in the vedas there is two main catergories, kama practioners (those with material desires) and akama (those without).
The distinction between them is their level of faith.

There are 4 general types of kama practioners

BG 7.16: O best among the Bhāratas, four kinds of pious men begin to render devotional service unto Me — the distressed, the desirer of wealth, the inquisitive, and he who is searching for knowledge of the Absolute.

and they pray according to their desires (which find their home in terms of dharma - religiousity, artha - economic development, kama - sense gratification, and finally moksha - liberation)

an akama practioner simply prays for the opportunity to serve or remember god - here are a few eg's of akama prayers


Siksastaka 4 - O Almighty Lord, I have no desire to accumulate wealth, nor to enjoy beautiful women. Nor do I want any number of followers. What I want only is the causeless mercy of Your devotional service in my life, birth after birth

Brhad Bhagavatmrta - 1.4.52 “Although Hanumän obtained from (God) the boon of liberation without striving for it, he never wanted to accept liberation without the opportunity to serve (God). To that Hanumän I offer my obeisances.”

Damodarastaka 4 - "O Lord Dämodara, although You are able to give all kinds of benedictions, I do not pray to You for the boon of impersonal liberation, nor for the highest liberation of eternal life in Vaikuntha (Heaven), nor for any other, similar boon. O Lord, I simply wish that this form of Yours as Bala Gopala in Vrndävana may ever be manifest in my heart, for what is the use to me of any other boon besides this?"

Even though there are stacks of akama prayers given in the vedic literature there are considerably more kama prayers since that is where the livign entity is generally situated - so its not surprising that most theistic practioners pray in the mood of desiring material benedictions - the idea is that by praying to god for these things one gradually comes to a more fixed up level of faith , hence the instruction

SB 2.3.10 A person who has broader intelligence, whether he be full of all material desire, without any material desire, or desiring liberation, must by all means worship the supreme whole, the Personality of Godhead.

 

[Ayodhya]

Ayod,

Clearly that is false. If you were dying of starvation would you have to verbalize the fact that you were hungry for it to be a strong desire?

I agree. It was a weak-minded argument.

Prayer in my eyes:
People rarely take time out of their daily lives to think about life because they are constantly on the move and do not try to rationalize their problems. Even ten minutes can prove useful. When one prays, they are thinking about God. However, not everyone has such a single-pointed consciousness. Ultimately, their thoughts drift to the very problems they are praying God to solve. They begin to think about it and begin to think of ways to solve such problems, and even though they may end their prayer early, the wheels are already in motion.

This may apply more to well-off people (who are not starving, poor, etc.) who do not realize how much they have to begin with.