Armageddon [spoiler]

Tonight I watched a National Geographic documentary about Armageddon.  It pitted the diehard Bible believers against theologian's theories about the meaning of the book of Revelation - whether it needs to be taken literally and the end of the world is nigh, or whether it should be taken as a then contemporary text alluding to the Roman/Jewish discord which raged at the time John was committing his wildly psychedelic hallucinations to papyrus, or parchment, or whatever it was he wrote it on.

I tend to lean towards the theologian's view.  I've never taken the Bible literally, and there's a whole host of reasons why, but I won't go into them.  I will however, make what should be an obvious observation which to me is a no-brainer, as to why the book of Revelation couldn't be an actual prediction of the end of the world.  Let me just say that I haven't read much of it at all - just snippets, because it bores me to tears and sounds ridiculously naive and stupid (why couldn't Bible writers think of another conjunction other than 'and'!)...  Anyway, the no-brainer is thus:

An old dude who'd hung out with Jesus, writes a depressing, rather nutty letter which is called the Revelation, which is sent out to Christians to let them know that the 'end is near'.  BTW, who the hell would even want to know the 'end is near'?  If a fortune teller told you you were going to die on Wednesday, you wouldn't thank her for it:  Jeez, thanks for that cheery bit of news; let's spend the rest of our pitifully short lives watching our doom tick ever closer...

Sorry, I digress.  So supposing that The Revelation, and Armageddon, the end of the world and all that, are spot on: you know that it is an absolutely true prediction, and there's nothing you can do about it.  Supposedly, the anti-christ will come and take over the world, but ultimately, good will prevail, God will win, and all us good (!!) people will live happily ever after while the anti-christ will run back to the fires of hell with his forked tail between his legs.   If all these predictions are written in stone and are unchangable, why will the anti-christ even bother?  If I were the anti-christ, I'd be rubbing my scaley claws together in glee as I read through the book of Revelation about how I'm about to wreak havoc and take over the world.  But the maliciously smug smile would be wiped off my face as I get to the end and I find out that my plan for world domination would be foiled by the bearded man upstairs.  "Shit", I'd say, 'I'm gonna lose - why even bother?'  So I'd sit back down again in my favourite armchair and watch a bit of 'Antiques Roadshow' or something.  If the anti-christ still tries to take over the world when the outcome is already known, and it's a sure thing that he's gonna lose, then he's a bloody idiot and deserves his come-uppance.

One more thought to leave you with - I wonder if God is pissed off with John for telling everyone what's going to happen and spilling the plot.  Perhaps the Bible should have included a [spoiler] warning just before the start of Revelations? ;)