Comments by "Peter deWolf" (@StoneShards) on "One Of The Deepest Conversations You Will Listen To About God | Dr. John Lennox | EP 394" video.

Scientists should be committed only to the faithful execution of the scientific method, which has no truck with the likes of "truth" in the metaphysical sense, since such transcendental values as "truth" are not falsifiable. The confusion between "fact" and "truth" drives the atheist fantasy.
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Gentlemen, I think your conception of the origin of the "first lie" in the Garden of Eden is radically amiss: it is not the serpent that lied! It spoke the truth, Adam and Eve would "be as God", knowing "good and evil", which is to say, having the capacity of "judgement". Adam and Eve "lied" in their attempt to deceive God. That judgement was wrong, and the "original sin". There was nothing wrong with wanting to be like God; that desire is love. So, the "sin" of disobedience to God's command to not eat of that tree was forgivable because they didn't have the judgement to balance their desire to be like God in order to remain obedient. God would have been able to overlook the transgression if they'd only been contrite, instead of deceptive, which would have been the right judgement for them to have made. So, using our judgement to balance our desires has become the nature of the inner life, which, finding expression in the outer life, shapes our world.
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The physical level of reality is the sphere of force resolution: the laws of physical reality guarantee the correct outcome, whatever it may be, with perfect equanimity. That fact should be a great comfort. Power has no choice in its resolutions--Nature is the decider. Self-sacrifice would seem strictly unnatural; Nature should mostly prohibit it. But the belief in an afterlife mitigates against the urgency of the "instinct to survive", thereby allowing the unnatural action. Indeed, the expectation of continuance beyond physical death enables a vast variety of unnatural actions. 😩
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Every "problem" stems from a rational inconsistency, some comparison has yielded contradictory valuations. Comparison establishes relation. A pattern of relations appears as comparisons proceed. "Pattern" is "image"...is "symbol". The look of the pattern resembles something, associates with that thing, and attaches to the pattern symbolically. As this pattern develops, novel appearances of the pattern present.
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We are products of the universe, so we are modeled on universal principles. That modeling predisposes our perceptions to "match" the perceived, rendering it "intelligible".
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"Subjective intellect", Jordan?! Ouch! Hard to grok that phrase. The serpents you learn to handle are your own proclivities. The Church prevents you from handling the serpent of "self as God", now, doesn't it! It seems to me we are continuously "creating our own values"--there must be a secret understanding to that phrase that I'm not familiar with, for the speakers to be denigrating the process as dangerous. You MUST create God! You must create a big-picture understanding of existence--it's the very drive of mentality! Every experience feeds this conception. Humans have always created God, usually as idols, physical objects. Science provides an expansive palette of colors by which to paint the most marvelous conceptions of ultimacy. Yes, since God is absolutely everywhere--meaning, nothing else can be anywhere--we are God, but not gods, though. It is important to avoid giving God form in imagination--that would be extremely disrespectful, and the beginning of all the problems of hubris hinted at by the speakers.
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Around 13:20, Jordan asserts that science emerged in the Judeo-Christian context, and nowhere else! The Taoism of ancient China was, esoterically, a well-developed science of spirituality, a metaphysic, involving the same sorts of conceptual manipulation as "Western science" relies upon in its methodology. The scientific method is simply enlightened rationality. The dogmatic constraint of the Church elicited "science" as an opposite, balancing, response.
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In abstract thought, the spirit plays with associations from experiential memory to form a vision of the truth in imagination. The common, or "normative", thought is relentlessly occupied with the articulation of the observation and identification of the stimulus the psyche experience from one moment to the next. You tell yourself what is happening the moment after it happens, comparing your articulation with your memory.
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It would be interesting to ask a hypnotist about "truth". What is the real meaning of "truth"? Is it "correctness"? Is it "factuality"? I think what is really meant by "truth" is "completeness of understanding". The problem is the commonly-encountered binary, true vs false, with its implication that falsehood can be absolute, like truth. Falsity is always expressed in terms of "negation"--the "not" word. But, negation cannot be cosmically valid--nothing can cease to be in every respect. Negation can be valid in a local context only. I have three apples; I take one away; how many apples do I have? Three, in the greater context, since I still have the apple I took away! But in the local context, two apples remain. There is only the One Awareness, infinitely differentiated in manifestation. Every atom is a complexification of a single point of differentiated Awareness.
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