Liza said:
Is having discernment worth it? How can it be used in some situations?
For instance... a friend is telling you that another friend is backstabbing you... do you immediately believe the friend telling you this without proof, or do you delve deeper by asking around and even confronting the "backstabbing" friend?
I would confront the "backstabbing" friend or ask around to investigate more before I can make a decision that my friend was indeed backstabbing me or not. I rarely jumped to the conclusion about anything. I learned the hard lesson when I was young kid and I promise to not do that again ever.
Liza said:
Another example is that a politician is telling you that his health plan would be beneficial . . . do you just believe him, or do your own research to find out if he is correct in his assertions about his plan?
Naw. I tend to research... actually, LOT of researching before I decide if I should believe him or not.
I also used to think that Fluoride is good for our bodies & our health because government said so but my mother said it isn't. So I decided to investigate the informations and facts by different authors and researchers... because I found out that Sweden and other countries banned Fluoride from their water system. I finally came to the conclusion that it isn't good for our bodies and our health.
I hope it is ok for me to bring Bush up as example in this topic. He shared his opinion about Social Security and I decided to look into
http://www.thereisnocrisis.com/ and many results & facts conducted by economy analysts in different articles included Time before I make a decision which I did. I found it isn't crisis at all.
Discernment DOES worth to have... no questions about it. I used it almost all of the time for any kind of situations. I am not allowed any persons or knowledges (books, magazines, journals included bible) to affect my judgment until I get the information from both sides then make a decision.
I made several mistakes in the past which I don't want to repeat in the present and future so I want to look at both side and make any decisions based on it.
Edit: Ah one thing... sometimes facts alone does not good enough.. If I didn't get enough information then I will use my 'guts', experiences and conscience to make a decision.
Second Edit: I can be very straightforward at some point, I have to do that so I can make a decision based on 'effect' -- Law of Causality.