When I was a child I thought as a child and I spoke as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things.
"Watch your thoughts; They become words. Watch your words; They become deeds. Watch your deeds; They become habits. Watch your habits; They become character. Character is everything." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I won't comment on the second half but it only toxifies conversation to assume the worst in others.
Isn't that what the parent comment did? That's the only reason I commented - i.e. implying that not being serious equals being childish. Quote or not.
I'm typically not one to quote Scripture in a professional setting, but in this case I'd like to do so because I feel that it illustrates an important point that is secular in nature. Note that I am in no way attempting to proselytize with this, so please don't take it in that way.
Here's 1 Corinthians 13 in its entirety:
> If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
> Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
> Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.
> When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
> Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
What I take from this is that you should be aware of the limits of your own perspective. No matter how strongly held your views on an issue and no matter how important they are to you, someone else may not share them - or may directly oppose them. If your views are right they will win out in the end and there is no need for you to attack or harm others (emotionally or physically) over them.
At the end of the day, whether you were right or wrong in the views you held, how you treat others is how your life is measured.
In fact, the context for 1 Corinthians 13 is the previous chapter: 1 Corinthians 12 where Paul writes about the church arguing over spiritual gifts, and he humbles them by saying something even simpler is more important than all of that, because they are arguing about the wrong things, basically who does the most works or miracles, but it's all worthless if you can't even love one another. Anytime I try to make an opinion about a Bible verse or chapter I go back and read the previous verse or chapter for context, it clarifies things a lot.
I'm not disagreeing with you btw, the point still remains, you can have really strong views on something, but they may not matter, you may find out (from a Christian viewpoint) in the end that they were partially right, or fully wrong and all the arguments were a waste of your life when you had better things to do.
I used to really get into theological arguments on Facebook Christian / Bible groups, but it's kind of a waste of time, most people reading what I have to say likely already made up their minds.