I knew the Aliens were involved. More seriously, the most irresponsible thing about this whole phenomena is the active interest of fundamentalists in egging on a World War to get themselves Raptured. If they're wrong, they're gonna have to join the rest of us in cleaning up one helluva mess they'll have created.
I used to believe all this stuff when Hal Lindsay was writing about it. I used to go see him speak at a very small Palos Verdes high school gym - doubling as a church. After awhile - it became obvious that the man was a complete charlatan, who shamelessly re-translated Greek and Hebrew phrases to twist biblical passages to "prophesy" the momentary political crises of the day. "..I discovered on further linguistic analyis, that the Hebrew word for "laden camel", also means InterContinental Ballistic Missile with MIRV capability!" - and so on.
And so now we have a new set of authors, picking up the slack. The more things change...the more change they rake in.