> Basically, I'm a Christian and I believe that the people in the middle east will continue to fight until shortly before the end of the world. Everybody keeps saying how great peace would be over there, and yeah, that would be nice and stuff, but if it happened that would pretty much be the end of everything, and then the rapture of the Church and so on and soforth... Until its due time, I don't think it's worth bothering with, because you can't argue with prophesy. If God says something's going to happen, it's GOING TO HAPPEN, and who is anybody to try to change that?

I can't agree with your line of reasoning there. If you believe God has planned for a particular thing to happen, you can't then turn around and also say "So nobody should do anything because that might make it not happen, or happen at the wrong time." The two beliefs don't match up. If God intends something to happen, there isn't any human event which will stop it or change it; no matter what people do, those events will lead to that thing happening. Saying one should, or should not, do something because it might cause God's plans to fail doesn't make any sense from a religious viewpoint.

Also, you don't know when the "due time" IS. I don't know the Bible very well, but I'm sure it says something about how nobody is going to know that until it happens. So, again, we can't base our actions on saying "maybe this would speed up/delay the end of the world" -- quite apart from what I've already pointed out about how we wouldn't be *able* to do that anyway.

If religion tells me there will always be violence until the end of the world when God makes everything perfect, does that mean I should do nothing if I see somebody getting beaten senseless on the street and it's possible for me to stop it? I thought Christianity had something to say about that, too, and it wasn't "Keep walking." If God "meant" that guy to get beaten up, then my intervention won't stop that; maybe I'll get hurt or even killed. But if I interpret God's word as meaning that, morally, I *should* help, then morally I'm still ahead of the game, because I obeyed God. The actual *outcome* of the event is still up to God. Do you see what I'm getting at here?

> As an interesting side note (and my whole reason for posting to this thread to begin with), my friend's dad just left for Israel today on some sort of twisted vacation thing. I don't have all the details, but he's going to Jerusalem and essentially right where the fighting is. It's not a pleasure trip and he's not going to fight, so I'm not sure what the purpose of his trip is. A pilgrimage of some sort, I suppose. But it's very scary because he doesn't think he's going to survive. He made a video will before he left, and he's honestly expecting to die over there. He's a Christian and very interested in end-times prophesy. He always reads the Jerusalem Post newspaper and he seems to know an awful lot about the middle east situation. (Well, actually, he's kind of radical and nutty/extremist, but don't tell *him* I said that...) I wonder if he knows something that I don't know, and I'm worried about this mysterious trip he's going on. What's he doing over there? Does he think he's going to see something BIG? I think he felt God was calling him to Israel for some reason. The whole thing is rather creepy, and I'm more than a little worried about the guy, and, well, what in the world could possibly be major enough to make him put aside his family and job to just go to Israel for no apparent reason? It's really strange.
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> Maybe if you could please pray for/hope for/wish for/remember him, because he may be in danger or even already dead. Your consideration would be great. This is a very stressful time for my friend, and well, for me too. Thanks.

I don't know what to say about this part. Remember that, whatever happens, people must make their own choices according to their own reasons. I hope you and your friend come through this OK, however it turns out.