Notice, also that one of the first mentioned creative acts of God was to gather the light, and He called it good.  He separated the light from the darkness which was already there. Is God teaching us, from this account, that it is good to divide the light from darkness or the good from evil?  Isn’t that an act of discernment and judgment?  

Is this teaching us that God discerns and judges between good and evil and so to live with Him, and to follow Him we must learn to effectively do that same labor?  With that in mind, would a better translation of Gen. 2:17, be to call it “the Tree of the Knowledge of Good from evil?”  Didn’t God call the light good?  Did He call the evil good?  No, He called it darkness! (Gen. 1:4) Consider: “… becoming as gods, knowing good from evil, placing themselves in a state to act…”  (Al. 12:1) and “… it is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil…”  (Moro. 7:15)

People tell us, “Don’t judge me!  You don’t know me well enough or what I’ve gone through, to judge me fairly!”  But in John 7:24, Jesus directs us to, “Judge not according to appearance [your traditions], but judge righteous judgment.”  So which is it?  Are we to judge or is it none of our business?  The prophet corrected the thought back to its original intent in Matt 7:1 to coincide with John 7:24 to read:  “Judge not unrighteously, that ye be not judged [for judging by anything other than by God's standards?]: but judge righteous judgment.”

Also let’s include into our line of reasoning the fact that intelligence, “or in other words, light and truth … forsake[s] that evil one … that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth [the Spirit of God within us] through disobedience … because of the tradition of their fathers.”  (D&C 93:37-39)  Thus God, being the most enlightened, or intelligent of all by far, divides or separates light and truth from darkness or the evil one.  Could we then conclude that, we too, as we increase in our ability to discern or judge between finer and finer shades of evil, that we also are growing in light and truth or become more “intelligent”? 

On the other hand, if we are not increasingly growing in light, and discerning truth from error, more and more effectively, why aren’t we?  The Lord reveals that when we disobey His commandments, even ignorantly, it is called disobedience.  We often judge an unrighteous judgment because we measure with inaccurate models called “traditions of their [our] fathers.” Thereby, the evil one is empowered to suck light and righteousness, or enlightened judgment, out of us.  We then proceed, having been deceived, by being disobedient. Our decision hardens our heart.  Our sensitivity is lessened, and now we begin to  believe a “little lie” or truth mingled with error, obscuring our vision just a bit. In such a manner, an evil spirit attaches to our new personal “creed” most of which we inherit, with strong emotional family-arity, and we have thus just taken another step down the path to being more and more fettered by the chains and handcuffs of hell.  (Study D&C 123:7)

Let’s conclude this blog by beginning to practice judging and categorizing everyday ideas, temptations, sights, and reasons we use to explain why we do what we do.  This is something we adults need to practice every day and it is also an exercise one could teach their children to engage in, to help give them a head start beyond where we may be ourselves today.

Divide every idea we consider, into degrees of intensity of light.  The greatest intensity of light for us on earth is the sun.  The next greatest illumination is the moon and the least intense are the stars on a clear night.  We will let the intensity of the sun represent the highest level in our judging criteria, or denominate it as something pertaining to what is Godly.  The illumination of the moon would represent good, honorable, moral standards possessed by most on this earth.  Lastly consider the relatively low level light from the stars to represent a very low quality of behavioral standard, far removed from the immediate effulgent presence of God.  If you were in a class room you could call the sun as “thumbs up” and the moon level as “thumbs to the side.”  The lowest level would be “thumbs down” and for more advanced participants, an aggressive active motion of thumbs downward could represent something of extreme evil or outer darkness, son of perdition type stuff. 

By what standard we judge will fundamentally determine, in large measure, the potential good of the final reward of our judgments, right?  If we judge by a Godly standard we have a better likelihood of moving closer to God (brightness increasing) by deciding to ingest that food, idea or activity into our lives.  For some that standard would be the Scriptures of whatever origin.  Remember the more accurate the standard, from the Creator’s point of view, the better for making the best judgment possible.  If our version of the Scriptures, or our own personal interpretation of those Scriptures, is mixed with false traditions, we will, of course, only be able to render a partially righteous or accurate judgment, from God’s point of view.

What would be examples of good moon intensity gauges by which to measure?  We could measure by the best philosophies and theories throughout history, or the wisdom amassed by our own family geniuses of which we are heirs. We could Google it and take the idea that best suits our fancy.  We could judge based on our gut level feeling or what our closest friends council us, etc.

The lowest level standard could be what gives them pleasure as opposed to pain.  Thus lying is okay, from their point of view, if it saves them from personal pain.  Good is that which serves them personally, letting others fend for themselves.  This low spiritual frequency exaggerates the needs of the body over the spiritual hunger or sensual pleasures above what is of a more long range and enduring outcome.  I trust you get the idea from living in this world and society.

Let’s start with an easy one:  junk food.  Does eating junk food tend to move one more toward a sun, moon, or stars enlightenment outcome?  Does eating such food move us spiritually and physically more toward God or away from being sensitive to His higher good?   It’s quite easy to judge that one, but perhaps harder to get ourselves to act according to our best judgment, right?  How do you judge it?  GIGO or garbage in, garbage out indicates the fact that if we put garbage into us spiritually, mentally or physically, it does cause certain consequences in our potential degree of being rewarded with a healthy and happy life in this world.   

Now consider the wearing of tight fitting, body form revealing clothing.  When women and even men wear skin tight clothing, what is their purpose, goal, or motivation?  Is it shallowly disguised by saying, "I do it because everybody is doing it or it is the current traditional fashion?"  Could it be that one feels small or unclean, or unworthy inside and wants people to desire to look at their body to make them feel better about theirself?  Is that person wanting to signal that they are available for the best offer of sexual contact?  What percentage of the cases you could dream up would conclude that the wearing of curve revealing clothing leads to the glorious presence of God and more of His Holy Spirit?  How many possible outcomes you could imagine are probably leading towards, honorable, moral purposes and outcomes?  How do you judge it? Does it tend, in most cases, to move one toward the sun, moon or stars level of enlightenment and final judgment? 

This judging a righteous judgment could become hard work, couldn’t it, especially if one’s past choices were less than glowing?  It may, consequently, become harder and harder to discern accurately, and may even impinge on one’s personal daily activities, causing guilt and a desire to cover up what one is thinking or doing as they begin to measure, by a sound standard, what their behavior is at all. 

When a person has begun to compromise against the standard they say they believe, and then life moves them into a situation where they have to judge a person who has made more correct decisions than they, how will they measure that person?  Will they out of guilt tend to put that person down with guarded but envious anger?  Will they judge by the most righteous standard they can measure by?  If I were to judge unrighteously a person more righteous than me, how would my judgment effect my own progression or lack thereof?  One could thus quicken their downward momentum by not only continuing to make bad judgment calls for themselves, but could greatly heap up upon themselves pain upon pain by their unrighteous judgments of others.  Scary business this judgment principle, isn’t it? 

Now let us just pick a couple more examples so you clearly get the pattern down.  How about watching professional sports?  Questions we could ask pertaining to this consideration might be:  Who tends to push professional sports and for what reason?  Are professional sports designed to make a few very rich and to make spectators of the shallow thinking masses?  Are they probably sun, moon or star enlightened people?  Once a habit of watching event after event becomes ingrained, which degree of enlightenment is it pushing one toward?  Do you dare ask the hard questions of yourself especially if this is one of your traditions and enjoyments?  If you don’t want to play the judge a righteous judgment game anymore, toward what intensity of light have you then decided to be content with?