Most beliefs get adopted the same quiet way clothing style gets adopted, by absorption, without ever being consciously chosen or tested. A framework for actually examining a belief, rather than simply inheriting it, runs through four steps, applied in a circle rather than once and forgotten.
Scrutinise first. Is this naturally acceptable, and is it true to existence as it actually is. Statements about human qualities get checked by asking whether the answer rises from within, unlearned, the way trust feels naturally preferable to suspicion regardless of who's asked. Statements about the wider world get checked against reality directly.
Examine next. Does the belief hold together as a coherent whole, or does it fall apart the moment it's looked at from a different angle. Does it connect sensibly to everything else already understood, or does it sit as an isolated fact with no real relationship to the rest of a person's thinking.
Survey after that. Is this the same for every human being, everywhere, at every time, or does it only seem to hold for one particular group, culture, or moment in history. A genuinely universal finding tends to hold up across all of these. A merely local habit or preference usually doesn't.
Live last, and this step carries the most weight. Does actually living by this belief produce mutual fulfilment with other people, and mutual enrichment with the natural world, or does it quietly damage both the moment it's put into practice.
These four steps run in a loop rather than a straight line, and that looping is what reflection actually is. A belief that survives all four rounds, repeatedly, earns a different kind of trust than a belief simply absorbed from an authority or a habit never questioned. Most people have never run a single belief through even one of these four steps, let alone all four in sequence.