Eschatology

In a political discussion about the Middle East in Skypeland, some American asked each person present from around the world to state their beliefs or their faith's beliefs in how the world would end, and how these ideas are associated with events in the Middle East. I immediately knew that he was from a fundamentalist evangelical Christian church in the US that subscribed to premillenialism, dispensationalism, or something similar, probably drawing on Millerite beliefs. And I tried to squelch the discussion, but without much success.

I did not want to see the room descend into religious bickering, because basically this person was seeking affirmation of the fringe beliefs he had been brought up with and indoctrinated into. This set of beliefs states that Armageddon will be fought in the Middle East, and this will herald the end of the world. Although the people that promote this belief try to claim it has deep historical roots, it is only loosely based on biblical writings and only became most popular after the fevered dreams of Margaret Macdonald, a 15 year old Scots-Irish girl in Glasgow in 1830:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture#History_of_doctrine
I explained this, but it was met with disapproval. People are not really interested in factural information but usually want to spew nonsense instead I guess.

I also noted that those who believe this prophecy are a teeny tiny segment of all of Christianity. It is not part of Catholicism or the Orthodox or Reformed Church doctrine. It is not part of mainline protestant theology. It is fairly prominent and known popularly in the US because of the books of Tim Lahaye and Hal Lindsey. However, probably it is not part of church doctrine of more than a per cent or two of all Christians on the planet, in my estimation.

The difficulty for me in these kinds of discussions is that these people seek to confirm some of what they are taught, and then this makes them feel comfortable in aggressively asserting their other religious beliefs, which are usually extremely intolerant towards those of other faiths or no faith or those different than them; Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, aethiests, Blacks, Catholics, Hispanics, homosexuals, etc. This is the same reason I object to creationist beliefs, aside from the anti-science component of creationist thought. People who get these crazy teachings affirmed in some way then feel justified in attacking others.

Finally, I sent him a website with a list of other beliefs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_times
and noted that as far as I know, there is only a small minority of Christians that believe that some armageddon-like event in the Middle East will bring about a paradise and a small minority of Muslims mainly in Iran (the Twelvers, or the Ithna-'Ashariyya who constitute no more than 12% of all Muslims, being only 80% of the Shiites since they do not include the Ismailis or the Zaidis, for example ) who subscribe to something similar.

I would be glad to participate in a religious cast about such things, however, I notice most people only want a short sound bite of information. They want to be told, "Yes all this nonsense that your pastor taught you and your parents taught you is correct, therefore it is ok to hate Jews, blacks, homosexuals, Catholics etc". That is not particularly useful or valuable, in my opinion. However, I think there is a role for an intellectual exploration of these sorts of beliefs and their diversity, although not necessarily in a political discussion (except tangentially). Unfortunately, most people are not interested in really learning or exploring these things.

Addendum: Here is some more information about the Twelvers, or those awaiting the appearance of the Twelfth Imam, the Mahdi:
http://www.wm.edu/so/monitor/spring2001/paper2.htm#_edn5