Defeat Or Join The Skeptic

Last night I shaved my gotee, I couldn't handle it. I'm just too much of a man to bear... I need a smooth face to counter all that testosterone output.... anyway.
So lately I've been doing quite a bit of reading for my TH 390 paper/research summary, and I'm really thinking it's difficult to come to a decent conclusion for at least a solid foundation for me to build my eschatology on. Even historically speaking everyone it seems has a different perspective, Papias was different then Justin Martyr, and they were only a generation apart from each other, and likely both knew the disciples or their contemporaries... so how on earth could they have a different eschatological view point. This book I'm reading hasn't really changed my own personal view of eschatology terribly, just made it even more complicated.
I also learned that only dispensationalists believe in the rapture. Last night Natalie and I were talking about the rapture and whether or not there would be one (as if anyconversation at 2 in the morning is coherent enough to even contemplate such a thing), and Natalie said she thought there would be a rapture, but as to whether or not it would happen during a tribulation or not she really hadn't resolved. I'm not terribly certian about the idea of a rapture personally, I don't want to believe it simply because that's the way my culture has conditioned me to read the bible. I really just want to believe what everyone else believes, but I have trouble reconciling the two views, (me and them). I don't agree with the dispensationalists that God has a distinct plan for Israel, I believe that the church is the new Israel. I don't agree with the post-millenialists that the world is getting better, and I don't agree with the amillenialists that the kingdom is already here among the Church because people are still suffering for Christ. I could be a historic-premillenialist, but I don't like just siding with my professor 'just because' it seems like the easiest and most logical conclusion. I want to reach the conclusion for myself.
The real problem is when someone rejects tradition and culture, they form a cult. If they just reject tradition, they ignore the foundations of the Christian faith like the creeds and councils. If they reject culture, they ignore contemporary application.
I think it might be easiest to settle for a post-modern view since it seems to have a sort of apathetic epistemologyl to begin with. I guess if we can't defeat the skeptic we might as well join him. I'm sure I'll come to my own view eventually, I'm just working on gaining a solid foundation for a good interpretive principal.
~Christopher J.