Tonight, the movie “Air Force One” was on TNT, and I watched a little as I ate dinner. In addition to confirming my recollection that the script was formulaic and manipulative, the few minutes I watched included the one scene I actually remembered from seeing it in the theater, in which the vice president (played by Glenn Close) asks “all the American people” to pray for the safety of the president and the other people on board the hijacked Air Force One.

The sort of plea—which seems, alas, quite realistic—brings up a question that has always confused me: what is the deal with intercessory prayer? Even if you do believe in God, what makes you think that praying will influence God’s actions? It seems to be at best a psychological crutch—since you can’t do anything, you might as well pray. And yet, implicit in the practice is the belief that it does at least some good. But what sort of bizarre God would alter the course of events based on a straw poll of believers? It just doesn’t make any sense.

Even if I did believe in God, I find it hard to imagine that I could ever believe in prayer. Clearly, prayer can be valuable to the person praying, in the same way that meditation can benefit the meditator. But, as far as I can tell, the hypothesis that prayer affects the external universe in any way has scant evidentiary support; indeed, it seems overwhelmingly contradicted by the evidence. Why, then, is belief in the power of prayer so common? And why are belief in God and belief in prayer so often conflated?

By now many of you have no doubt heard that Brian May, best known as the lead guitarist of Queen, has received his Ph.D. in Astrophysics. Now that you know this, give a(nother) listen to ‘39 from Queen’s album A Night at the Opera. Written (and ably sung) by Dr. May, ‘39 tells the story of a group spacefarers who sail out to the stars “In the year of ‘39…in the days when lands were few”. They return to Earth, according to the crew, that same year—but arrive many years later according to those they left behind:

In the year of '39 came a ship in from the blue
The Volunteers came home that day
And they bring good news of a world so newly born
Though their hearts so heavily weigh
For the earth is old and grey, to a new home we'll away
But my love this cannot be
For so many years have gone though I'm older but a year
Your mother's eyes from your eyes cry to me

That’s right—Queen wrote a song about time dilation. I’ve always liked Queen, but this takes them to a whole new level.