Not convinced that 'Then god is a hapless distraction' follows... it might well be our expectations due to our helplessness, it might be our failure to realize that it is we who are equipped to make the necessary resolve,  that a god never intervenes in history nor any evidence of it, but our faulty prayers are designed with the expectation that a god does so, our myths and superstitions are replete the 'gap theory' and 'ex machina'.