Buzsaw writes:
... I also see it emerging in current events...
I'm sure you are not alone. Others, no doubt, have also seen fulfillment of these prophecies emerging in "current events", such as the Crusades of the Middle Ages, the great plague that ensued from those battles, the Napoleanic wars, both World Wars, and any number of other significantly worrisome calamities suffered by those who have tried to understand these passages. I suppose there's something in these "prophecies" for all "attentive" readers in all epochs -- these visions have been equally "useful", "pertinent" and "accurately predictive" in all periods since they were first written down... which is to say, not much at all, really.
IMHO, it is quite rare (and thankfully so) that anyone can read these texts and detect anything coherent or comprehensible, let alone anything that is specifically related or relevant to "current" events, whether today or at any time. Even if you are determined to work up a sweat with interpretive gymnastics to link this stuff to our day-to-day lives, it seems you still need to be selective, leaving out portions of text that are simply too erratic (and downright goofy) to fit in with anything.
And what's the point of all that anyway? What sorts of "predictions" are really being made? What impact should they actually have on choices we make? If the next leader of the U.S. (and/or France, Russia, Israel, Egypt, Britain, China, ...) were to figure out a viable strategy for negotiating peace in all the Middle East conflicts, leading to cooperative prosperity and children playing in local parks without fear of violence and so on, would you say, on the basis of these prophetic passages you're struggling over, that any such plan should be opposed, because it goes against the Will Of God? That would be really sick, to say nothing of seeming quite un-Christian.
autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.
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