Will an if statement be able to make a decisive decision w/ values that involve parentheses?

This is like an extension of my past question, but I'd like to expand on it further.

As the title suggests, I'm wondering if an if statement will be able to make a decisive decision when faced w/ parentheses when handling values; a bit confusing, so I'll provide code for what I mean:

local ExampleVariable = nil
local CompareNumberValue = 1

if CompareNumberValue == (ExampleVariable or 1) then -- This is what I mean
	print('It worked! :O')
else
	print('Didn\'t work :/')
end

In the past, and still present to this day, when you use multiple or's but don't repeat the value, it doesn't work:

local ExampleNumberValue = 0

if ExampleNumberValue == 1 or 6 or 8 then -- Obviously will fire, b/c 6 & 8 will return true, and aren't being compared to anything
	print('Waah...?')
end

But w/ my raised question, will an if statement make a decisive decision when faced w/ parentheses?

EDIT

Well, just to be safe & ask, is this good practice to use? Or a good solution to some problems? And why would it as if value = var or num, the literal meaning for a sentence, instead of if value = var, then true, else num is true?

I believe so. ExampleVariable and 1 are contained within the parentheses, which should technically make it its own statement. Therefore, (ExampleVariable or 1) should always return 1.

EDIT: This is generally the way I would write my code:

local level --no need to declare, we want it nil for these purposes
local defaultLevel=1 --if there's no level, we still want something to work with.
local levelToUse=(level or defaultLevel) --get at least 1 value that isn't nil
if levelToUse==1 then --use our value that is guaranteed to be a number
	print("User is on level 1") --print to output
end --close the statement

Eh, if you say "or" it will only check the value after or if the previous value before or was issued as false, and also why do you have to ask? when you can experiment yourself...