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Offering either science or religion to one in dire need (as is everyone) of internal substance is like giving a starving person a rubber chicken. It looks good and he immediately feels better. Now filled with hope and confidence, he chews and chews and chews but continues to get thinner and thinner all the same. If his preoccupation with, and his belief in, the nutritional value of the rubber chicken prevents him from procuring real food, the situation becomes worse.
“That some real food may be securely hidden within the rubber chicken only makes the situation more pathetic (he can smell it, but doesn’t know how to get access to it). The hungrier the man gets, the more he becomes fixated on the rubber chicken, and the less capable he is of eventually figuring out the puzzle. He eventually dies of starvation, forever grateful to the Great Benevolence that provided him the precious gift of hope in the form of a wonderful rubber chicken.”
From My Big TOE [Theory of Everything]: Awakening by Thomas Campbell
Awake in Los Angeles 