Do you believe everything you are told?

I don't believe anything

I agree with you smileless2012.
But i also go with my gut instinct.

As ive aged I question more,Socrates said question everything,
on the big things yes, little things? I think being a healthy sceptic can only be a good thing.It is said that philosophy asks questions but gives no answers,religion gives us answers we cannot question,I prefer philosophy!

I remember going home from school and telling my mum the story of baby Jesus was rubbish and I didn’t believe it. My mum said that I was a brassy little madam I was about nine at the time.

Even as a toddler, I didn't believe everything I was told.

I remember all too well, if I looked sulky or miserable (which was probably quite often, as i am not blessed with a happy resting face expression) being warned that my face would stay like that for ever if the wind changed direction, or that Santa was at the top of the chimney and would know if I was naughty.

I also remember thinking the toddler equivalent of "what a load of b******s".

oodles, I can really relate to what you said regarding genealogy.

Before we had access to the Internet, OH (and I) did a lot of research into his family history. We visited the various places where the records were then held, and trawled through the records ourselves. We reached a point in the 1700s where we could only have gone further back by 'assuming' that certain entries on birth registers were his ancestors.

Unfortunately, we know from our own research that some 'information ' about the family now being shared online is totally incorrect!

I certainly do not believe any politician.

soldiersailor

Brian Cox and Boris Johnson have both fallen for the 'We're all doomed' approach to climate change. Cox in particular wants to ban all debate, which is odd as when I was at university I was urged to always challenge, always question, as by this means and by healthy scepticism science, and thus civilisation, advances. But that has changed and no university would promote such an attitude these days.
In the last ten years we've taken a sizeable backward step and I fear from my grandsons' future.

The threat to your grandsons’ future us well-founded due to climate change.

It depends. I don’t fact check everything but I definitely don’t believe everything I’m told. And I’ll always check before I passed any info on to anyone.

... I'm just curious about what might have prompted the OP's question...

It's such a broad one - I mean, does anyone believe all that they are told?

It's the advertising one. The article's written by somebody who calls herself the Disruption Director.

Do you ever feel you're getting really old? ???

I found the Disraeli citation on a website entitled IPA. I couldn't find, anywhere on their website, what the initials stood for so I googled. Here are the results:
Innovations for Poverty Action
International Police Association
International Phonetic Association
Involvement and Participation Association
International Psychoanalytical Association
Infrastructure and Projects Authority
Institute of Public Affairs
Institute of Public Administration
Institute of Practitioners in Advertising
International Play Association

One of them must be right about the Disraeli quote!

?????

I thought it was Mark Twain?

Disraeli said no such thing. Don't believe everything people tell you.

Sorry if this has already been quoted:
In the words of Benjamin Disraeli, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." This is particularly apt in these times of Covid.

There's also hearsay, of course.

A bit of both, depends on what it is, is it trivia, a friend tells me that such and such is happening at such a time on such a day, probably believe them, or what time a TV programme is on, but equally might look up the website to find out if I need to book an outside thing, I'd believe my daughter if she said she would do something while I was away
I don't believe the first bit on google unless it is a reputable site, eg the British heart foundation or UNICEF, I would also see what people say, is there a controversy about such and such drug perhaps, and from that I can look at what reputable sources say, and the evidence. Also, it can be useful to find out what people are saying so I can see what it is based on, and if there is a grain of truth in it, and again what the experts say about it [and obviously expert guidance changes as more discoveries are made]
I volunteer for an organisation that , also supports people with up to date research-based information and much of this has had to move online because of the cost of postage and printing, also though it learns from people experiencing the situation what happened with their experience, everyone's experiences are different. Just because it is online doesn't mean it is unreliable. It's important to have accurate info out there to counter the inaccurate stuff
I look at the covid figures for our council and have no reason not to trust them
When COVID first hit I did actually follow some online courses aimed more at professionals, to get better informed, and determined to wear a mask long before it was deemed mandatory and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
For more academic stuff there is a lot of reputable stuff online, and as with using traditional media you have to read around the subject and not rely on just one source [unless that one source is a diary perhaps] There are new discoveries regularly, look at the discoveries that DNA has enabled, and more sophisticated ways of analysing stuff, and better ways of doing an archaeological dig for example.
Family trees on ancestry though..... some very large pinches of salt there, I have seen people go chasing after the wrong ancestors just because they picked the wrong one [with the right name] and didn't check the evidence, so have gone barking up the wrong tree, just because you have a Molly Molone born Ireland in `1822 or 25 or whatever with a father called Patrick and you find a Molly baptised in Cork sometime around the right time, doesn't mean that it is yours, there were probably dozens around the country, some with the same name father, even if the name is distinctive, Euphemia Fitzhiggins with a father called Marmaduke I'd still make sure that they were not names used by different children of the family once they had their own children. I'm building up my tree on ancestry based on research I did back in the pre-internet days when you had to get birth certificates and censuses and suchlike, and you sometimes got a certificate with a totally different father or mother's maiden name so probably not yours. When I've done that I need to kindly get in touch with some of the people to whom I'm related per DNA, and try and put them right by showing them the evidence. I hope that they will be pleased
And that if I do likewise no matter how careful I am, someone else will put me right

No I don’t I am a naturally cynical I think truth can be lost in translation and interpretation. I once watched a documentary how peoples interpretation of events as witnesses altered radically.

Nope.

I have just received an article saying Pfizer confirms vaccinated people can “shed” spike proteins.
I was almost taken in until, at the end of the article I read “Satan has been loosed from his prison”.
I wonder if the author had not given themselves away like that whether I would have accepted the article?
It is a minefield out there.

I triple-check. You never know when people have an agenda, and they are trying to get you to repeat what they are saying as if it is the truth.

I worked with doctors for over 40 years. I would NOT trust anything a doctor told me now.

By nature I'm a trusting person and tend to take things at face value, so no, I don't often research things I'm told, too time consuming!

It depends what it is, if it sounds too ridiculous to be true, then I check it. I usually believe people who I know and trust.

In my early teens I realised that my mother, who honestly believed she was a truthful person and many others who likewise "always told the truth" exaggerated when they told you about something they had done or said.

In Shakespeare's words they "remembered with advantages the things they did that day".

My mother was genuinely horrified when I said to her on one occasion "but that was not what actually happened, you know, though it makes a good story."

Later, I was to realise, as we all have done with childhood memories, that my sister remembered things from our childhood in one way, and I in another. There was no point saying to her that things hadn't happened that way - she had her memories that were the truth to her and I had mine, that I was convinced were true, though slightly different to hers.

I was taught both at school and at home never to automatically believe what I read in a newspaper, but at least to compare one paper's account of an event with another's.

Later at university (Faculty of Arts) we were taught that academic research is based on a hypothesis that has to be capable of proof or disproof and that any other academic in the same field must be able to repeat one's research to test the hypothesis. Only a proven hypothesis that could and had been tested could be deemed to be scientific fact.

So no, in my own field, I would never just believe what I was told.

As my field is not biochenistry, I have obviously had to base my acceptance of the Covid 19 vaccine on what research chemists and doctors advise, supplemented by skimming through such of the arguments for or against it that were comprehensible to a layman, and didn't strike me as ludicrous nonsense.

Coming up for 70, I find it regretably hard to believe that politicians would, as someone said (Dornford Yates perhaps? or Georgette Heyer? Dorothy L Sayers?) recognise the truth if it danced naked in front of them.

On the other hand, I would considered it grossly impolite to doubt the veracity of anything a friend, relation or acquaintance told me, unless I had factual knowledge to base my disbelief on.