Sam Harris couldn't agree more.

@Agnostics_R_Us - 

After reading his Letter to a Christian Nation, I have to say that's one of the few things I agreed with him about. He's certainly not the only one saying that though; I've been saying that for awhile, and many theologians (Gary Demar, who wrote Last Days Madness, and Gary North, who wrote Rapture Fever: Why Dispensationalism is Paralyzed, which I actually link to on the top of the page, leap to mind) have been saying it for even longer. Hank Hanegraaff has also written several books (such as The Apocalypse Code) saying that dispensationalism, which generally supports Zionism in some form, has led to disastrous results in terms of our foreign policy and other areas.

@ethansudman - 

Well I'm glad to hear not every Christian is riding the apocalypse, but I do have some questions though, if you feel like answering. (1) On a scale of 1 to 10, (ten being most obscure), how clear is it from Scripture just what precisely the end times scheme is? There's like three or four major ideas about that out there, right? Are you surprised when people get it so wrong? (2) And...how easy do you think it is to convince your fellow Christians of that version of things? (3) Thirdly, do you think its a significant problem in our society having a variety of religious people who establish rather strong feelings of confidence on what you would think is a bad reading of Scripture? (4) Why do they do that? Why don't they leave themselves more open to being correctable? (5) What would you say to someone that thinks the means of discerning the truth of the matter is too shallow and finicky in a Christian (or any religious) paradigm? (6) Why is God not responsible for this apparent communication failure and (7) why is a more informed Christian (like yourself presumably) better equipped to convince people to live responsibly in the short term than someone like Sam Harris that preaches universal solidarity based on humanistic evidence we all have available?

I'm sure that's quite enough for now.

ARU

@Agnostics_R_Us - 

Sorry for m delay in responding. Those are good questions, I'll try to answer them the best I can.
1. The main hangup for most people is either lack of knowledge of hermeneutics (i.e. they don't even know how to approach the apocalyptic passages in Scripture - that's an issue Hank Hanegraaff focuses a lot on in The Apocalypse Code, and in fact explaining that is the main thrust of the book), a lack of background in the Old Testament prophets (which is absolutely necessary if you're to have any hope of understanding the book of Revelation), or lack of historical knowledge (which can be remedied through good commentaries). So basically, it absolutely requires careful study, but that's not because the text is unclear, it's because it assumes a certain amount of prerequisite knowledge.
2. Surprisingly easy for the most part. There are certain issues that tend to come up a lot, but once I've addressed the main issues my position seems to make a lot of sense to a lot of people.
3. Yes and no. Yes in the sense that this bad reading of Scripture has, in my opinion, done a lot of damage to Christianity. No in the sense that it's not unusual in that way - i.e. a lot of people have strongly held opinions about a lot of topics that are frankly dead wrong. A lot of people strongly believe in socialism, for example. I guess what I'm getting at is yes it's a bad thing, but it's not necessarily a worse thing than other kind of strongly held wrong opinions.
4. I'm not sure that they don't. I find that, with a lot of people, they just haven't heard any different interpretation than the one they've always been taught. I was in that camp for a long time myself - it didn't even occur to me that there could even be another way of reading the Bible, and I think a lot of other people are in the same boat. As I said above, many people are very open to alternative interpretations like my own once they know they're out there.
5. I'm not quite sure what you mean by this - could you clarify?
6. The problem is on our end, not God's. A lot of differences in interpretation are due to the noetic effects of sin.
7. Sam Harris is making a much broader claim than I'm making here. His case is also much more difficult to prove (in fact, I would argue that it's impossible because materialism undermines reason itself - after all, if everything is material, then how can you have the immaterial laws of logic? Not only that, but you get into the whole question of why it makes sense to have immaterial moral laws related to universal solidarity in a system that doesn't allow for immaterial entities or a universal lawgiver). By way of contrast, all I'm claiming is that dispensationalism is a misreading of the Bible, which is a much more narrow claim that's easier to prove.

Thanks for the answers. I can discern what the answer to number 5 from the rest of what you've said, so don't worry about it. And I see it appears that you think winning a long standing philosophical debate (7) that very few people even know about is easier than the concept of how much sense it makes to just get along. You are rather inventing a non-issue in my opinion for all practicality sake. Personally I think basic solidarity is going to be a lot easier than expecting everyone to become relative experts in ancient history (or philosophy for that matter). Doesn't it seem like laity in general just end up picking their favorite expert? I just don't expect much headway to come from that direction. Don't get me wrong, convince as many as you can as every little bit helps, but as I see it, the general trend that's going to get to most people in the long run probably isn't going to come from studies in hermeneutics. I guess I could be mistaken.

Maybe I'm wrong on this too, but it seems like a die hard socialist is more amendable to change simply because at some basic level he or she is more individually responsible for their own opinion. Whereas Biblical theists it seems, tend more often to form deeper and wider base level convictions (from whatever their random denominational circumstances have given them) they don't have control over. They are too often too quick to assume what has been set before them is from God himself and has cosmic significance of sorts because that's the natural expectation of a theistic setup. Not to say that that's how everyone is all the time, but in theory, it would seem to be a more persistent trend than any secular conviction could ever match. What do you think? Am I off base here?

ARU