A
society that denies the supernatural usually ends up elevating the natural to
supernatural status. Annie Dillard tells
of experiments in which entomologists entice male butterflies with a painted
cardboard replica larger and more enticing than the females of their species. Excited, the male butterfly mounts the piece
of cardboard; again and again he mounts it. "Nearby, the real, living
female butterfly opens and closes her wings in vain."
C.
S. Lewis uses the phrase "sweet poison of the false infinite" to
describe this same tendency in the human species. We allow substitute sacreds, or false
infinites, to fill the vacuum of our disenchanted world.
-- Philip Yancey in Rumors of
Another World
#3071
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