“We want to love God-not with an empty, small, or flabby mind, but with a mind as large, as vigorous, and as disciplined as we can possibly make it.” ~Dr. Arnold Green Our 1st Annual MDM Celebration event was a great success! We loved spending the day with stellar moms, collaborating and learning from each other and especially gaining insights and principles for better discernment. Check out these highlights from the event! Listener's Guide: Use the time stamps below to skip to any part of the podcast.  2:40 Introduction to Discernment 6:45  Judgment 11:07  Indoctrination 19:20  Workshops 22:00  Social Discernment  25:16  Spiritual Discernment 29:38  Cultural Discernment   Quotes from this episode: “Moral education is impossible apart from the habitual vision of greatness.” ~Alfred North Whitehead “Mr. Hutchins and I…taught a course in the philosophy of education last year. It was taken by men and women who were candidates for the Ph.D. in education, many of whom were already in responsible teaching or administrative positions. We began with this definition: ‘Education is the process where by the power of human nature become developed by good habits.’ I have italicized the word “good” because that, as usual, was the stumbling block. The class objected to the definition as normative; the science of education must be objective. Some of them said there was a nothing good or bad about education, and others shocked us even more by suggestion that education might just as well be a development of bad habits. The argument went on for days, requiring us to get down to fundamentals. In the course of it we discovered that these professionals in education had been thoroughly indoctrinated with scientism and positivism. The mark of indoctrination was that they really couldn’t defend their position; the marks of the doctrine they had swallowed were the familiar denials—of the objectivity of moral standards, of the rationality of men, of any method for answering questions except that of empirical science.” ~Mortimer Adler “A man has as much authority intrinsically as he is able to speak the truth.” ~Mortimer Adler “Judgment is automatic, like swallowing...judgment must be based on first principles...principles require the exercise of reason and judgment.” ~Thomas Reid “Love requires wisdom and judgment - knowing what is best for someone and having the spiritual courage and mental discipline to take the necessary action.” ~M. Scott Reid “When right feelings are not supported by right thinking, good men can be insensibly corrupted.” ~Mortimer Adler “Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.” ~Samuel Adams “Conscience is the most sacred of all property…and is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.” ~James Madison “Individual rights are moral principles identifying the social conditions required by man’s nature for his proper survival.” ~Ayn Rand “God has formed us as moral agents...that we may promote the happiness of those with whom He has placed us in society, by acting honestly towards all, benevolently to those who fall within our way, respecting sacredly their rights, bodily and mental, and cherishing especially their freedom of conscience, as we value our own.” ~Thomas Jefferson “We want to love God-not with an empty, small, or flabby mind, but with a mind as large, as vigorous, and as disciplined as we can possibly make it.” ~Dr. Arnold Green “The least stain upon your character will do more harm to your happiness than all accomplishments will do it good.” ~John Adams