I'm really glad you started this thread. I was thinking about starting a thread like this but you preempted me thus making you look smarter than I could have looked had I posted first. I will have to beat you for this later. 
The reasons why prophecy appears to be filled is legion. The causes are so many that it might be useful to break things down a bit. First there is the forer effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect . This effect explains why horoscopes appear to be prophetic. For example in the Bible the second and third chapters of Revelations talks about specific prophecies to certain first century churches. The modern interpretation of the book of Revelations (which might be as old as 500 years, I don't recall, any input would be useful) is that each church represents a "church age" or time period in Christian history from the death of Christ to the present. God supposedly knew the future and he gave these prophecies for the churches to come in each time period. Humans only need to guess what "church age" matches up to which time period. Now if I were to take any of those prophecies and tell someone who knew nothing about them that this was God's prophecy for the church in our time period, like a horoscope they could see "truth" in any one of those prophecies if they wanted to. Interpretation of biblical prophecy via the Forer effect was one of the most annoying things I had to deal with when I was a fundie. So many of the prophecies are so vague they could have multiple interpretations. Add in translation problems etc and you have a cf (cluster fuck). Counting the hits and explaining away the misses (something that I am guilty of) is just a part of being a religious person.
As for the prophecies of Jesus this is even more cluster fucked. The entire Bible, OT and NT is a concocted thing. Multiple authors over a long period of time wrote it. The NT went through many changes. It was so easy to adjust things. In fact In John 21:11 there is a story about the miraculous catch of fish. After Simon Peter tossed the net on the right side of the boat per Jesus's suggestion he caught 153 fish. 153 is known as the "Vesica Piscis" or measure of the fish. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesica_piscis It has significance in sacred geometry and some of the pagan religions of the time. Anyhow it is fairly apparent that this number was added in later, like a lot of other things in the gospel of John....but don't tell this to a fundie, you will be wrong of course.
The reasons why prophecy appears to be filled is legion. The causes are so many that it might be useful to break things down a bit. First there is the forer effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect . This effect explains why horoscopes appear to be prophetic. For example in the Bible the second and third chapters of Revelations talks about specific prophecies to certain first century churches. The modern interpretation of the book of Revelations (which might be as old as 500 years, I don't recall, any input would be useful) is that each church represents a "church age" or time period in Christian history from the death of Christ to the present. God supposedly knew the future and he gave these prophecies for the churches to come in each time period. Humans only need to guess what "church age" matches up to which time period. Now if I were to take any of those prophecies and tell someone who knew nothing about them that this was God's prophecy for the church in our time period, like a horoscope they could see "truth" in any one of those prophecies if they wanted to. Interpretation of biblical prophecy via the Forer effect was one of the most annoying things I had to deal with when I was a fundie. So many of the prophecies are so vague they could have multiple interpretations. Add in translation problems etc and you have a cf (cluster fuck). Counting the hits and explaining away the misses (something that I am guilty of) is just a part of being a religious person.
As for the prophecies of Jesus this is even more cluster fucked. The entire Bible, OT and NT is a concocted thing. Multiple authors over a long period of time wrote it. The NT went through many changes. It was so easy to adjust things. In fact In John 21:11 there is a story about the miraculous catch of fish. After Simon Peter tossed the net on the right side of the boat per Jesus's suggestion he caught 153 fish. 153 is known as the "Vesica Piscis" or measure of the fish. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesica_piscis It has significance in sacred geometry and some of the pagan religions of the time. Anyhow it is fairly apparent that this number was added in later, like a lot of other things in the gospel of John....but don't tell this to a fundie, you will be wrong of course.
I have studied the Bible and the theology behind Christianity for many years. I have been to many churches. I have walked the depth and the breadth of the religion and, as a result of this, I have a lot of bullshit to scrape off the bottom of my shoes. ~Ziploc Surprise
