This is the kind of absolute irrelevant fantasies brought up by the End Time Crazies and should just be laughed at.
I’d say that pretty much sums it up. However, the laughter becomes a bit strained when I think about the potential for such prophecies to become self-fulfilling. Where prophecies are made and there are enough people that believe them, those people will certainly have an interest in said prophecies coming true. Therefore, it’s not unreasonable to suspect that some believers would do what they can to help things along. I don’t know how likely that really is (I hope I'm wrong!) but judging from what I’ve seen there seem to be a lot of "End time crazies" around, and they believe it all with as much certainty as I believe that tonight I will go home and eat dinner. And they don't appear to be an obscure fringe group, but seemingly average middle-class people, who can vote.
End-times prophecy foresees a major war (supposedly the one to end 'em all!) taking place in the Middle-East. It MUST occur as prophesized, in order for the believers to take their place by Christ’s side and fight the armies of Satan and all that crap. Surely it can't be TOO hard to start a war like that, can it?
Maybe all of this is stretching the boundary of the topic, but I think any discussion on the validity of prophecy ought to consider the self-fulfilment issue.
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