[jonbro]

this is the definition of a turing tarpit.

[kd0amg]

I think I'd be more inclined to call this version a Church tarpit.

[psykotic]

That's an easy but in my opinion wrong conclusion to draw. The magic of lambda calculus is that unlike Turing machines it supports building abstractions that let you hoist yourself out of the tarpit and present a usable programming interface to the end user.