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Interesting parallel

I just had one of those middle-of-the-night insights.

My conversations in this forum with people who think it's important to predict the future are a lot like my conversations with people who think it's important to carve out a large space in your devotional life for God's Mother, the BVM. (That's "Bless Virgin Mary," for non- or never- Catholics.)

In both cases, the soundness or completeness of my Christian faith is questioned, since I don't share that passion.
In both cases, the passion appears disproportionate. Given the massive centrality of what God did for us in the Lord Jesus Christ, why is there so much excitement about the sideshow, the distraction, the diversion?
In both cases, speaking as a Biblical Christian of the Reformed persuasion, the other party's hobby horse has that reek of sulfur. That whiff of kinship with the demonic.
- We know that Satan covets worship, and will even masquerade as an angel of light, like Moroni, or the apparitions of the BVM, to siphon off that which should be directed to God alone.
- We know that Satan desperately longs to see himself portrayed as the winner within history, despite the work of Christ on Calvary, the resurrection, the enthronement, etc. Whose interests are served when Christians eagerly look for and tout and loudly celebrate tokens or evidences of demonic progress?
Yet, in both cases, I am dealing with fellow Christians, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, on their way to heaven with me.

I was raised a mariolator. As a brand new Jesus Freak, I bought into Hal Lindsey's apocalyptic hysteria, when he'd only been married twice. As a gratefully humble and astonished Reformed Christian, I marvel at the processor cycles my dear fellow saints squander on those dead ends.

Winners and lovers shape the future.
Whiners and losers try to predict it.

" My conversations in this forum with people who think it's important to predict the future "

Daniel though so...

Daniel 9:2
In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.

"In both cases, the soundness or completeness of my Christian faith is questioned, since I don't share that passion."

That is called "projection" I believe. (Side note: is the soundness and completeness of your faith now really beyond question?)

"In both cases, the passion appears disproportionate. Given the massive centrality of what God did for us in the Lord Jesus Christ, why is there so much excitement about the sideshow, the distraction, the diversion?"

Over 50% of Scripture is prophetic in nature. 50% of what God has to say to us is put in terms of prophesy. Hard to miss that point.

"In both cases, speaking as a Biblical Christian of the Reformed persuasion, the other party's hobby horse has that reek of sulfur."

Sadly, in my experience, it is Calvinism that is a hobby horse for many. Many Calvinist I speak to have little to say about Jesus Christ - or do so as an afterthought. At first opportunity they will turn the topic to Calvinism. For some it seems to be an idol named Theology.

"We know that Satan desperately longs to see himself portrayed as the winner within history, despite the work of Christ on Calvary, the resurrection, the enthronement, etc. Whose interests are served when Christians eagerly look for and tout and loudly celebrate tokens or evidences of demonic progress?"

Because Jesus TOLD us to.

Luke 21:28
And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.

"I marvel at the processor cycles my dear fellow saints squander on those dead ends."

There are many who go too far with prophesy - to the point that it eclipses the glory of Christ. But you seem desirous of dismissing the whole topic altogether. In that, you are discarding something that God has given to His people. You may see no need for it - but you are flourishing in a time of ease. Prophetic literature is, in one sense, primarily for the benefit and aid of fellow Christians who are suffering persecution. It is God's lifeline to then to help them make it through situations that you and I probably know nothing about.

Paul SPECIFICALLY stated this when he told the Thessalonians...

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Winners and lovers shape the future.
Whiners and losers try to predict it.

This sound like some sort of repackaged, "christianized" humanism. I don't care how much of a lover you may be, you can shape nothing. To call those who search the Scriptures "whiners and loosers" is to insult the very prophets who wrote the Scriptures...

"Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look."