The main problem is that you read Revelation differently than I do. Your reading is mediated by a presumption that Revelation looks ahead to our own time, some 2,000 years later. This prevents you from noticing the clear and unambiguous references to the first-century situation as it is described by Revelation. This is easy to overlook because of our general unfamiliarity with the first-century world in which Revelation was written. But there was nothing at all "obscure" about the things I mentioned in my last post to the very readers the book was addressed to (cf. 1:4). The same symbols, concepts, and language were used similarly in other apocalypses written around the same time. The original first-century milieu of the book only seems absurd because it is already ruled out a priori by the presumption imposed by your reading of the book.
Note that this presumption does not come from the text itself but from the hindsight of 2,000 years +. This hindsight is very valuable in evaluating the accuracy of the author's prophetic foresight, but it is of dubious exegetical value when it overrides what the book itself says (in which case, your reading becomes eisegetical, not exegetical). Revelation repeatedly emphasizes that the visions pertain not to events in the far distant future but to the immediate future, as it was in the first century. The revelation is "about the things which are now to take place very soon" (1:1), not from the standpoint of the 20th century, but from the standpoint of the very people whom the book was addressed (1:4), the Christians in the seven churches in Asia Minor. Again, the author says in 1:3 that the "time is at hand" and also notes that the book relates "the things that are (eisin, present tense), and the things that are about to occur after these things" (v. 19); there is no gap here of 2,000 years, the idea is that the present circumstance will lead directly into the end times. The letters to the churches of Asia Minor similarly refer to Jesus' coming in eschatological judgment as something that is about to occur, affecting the lives of the very recepients of the book (cf. 2:5, 15, 22-26, 3:3, 20). The imminence of the coming is indicated in 3:20 with the image of Jesus "standing at the door knocking". Revelation 4:1 refers to the vision as pertaining to "things that are about to occur", 10:7 declares that "the time of waiting is over" when the seventh seal is opened, 12:12 refers to the remaining time of the evil to be "short", the interpreting angel informs the author that the vision is of "what is soon to take place very soon now" (22:6-7), and tells him to not "keep the prophecies in this book a secret because the time is at hand" (v. 10)... again, this is not from our own point of view in the 20th/21st century but from the time of John's authorship of the book. The book could not be kept a secret because the prophecy needed to be read by people right then and there in the first century so they can repent before the end comes (cf. 22:16). And Jesus promises at the end of the book that "Indeed I am coming quickly," and the author replies, "Amen, come, Lord Jesus" (22:20). An idea of an interim 2,000 years is entirely foreign to this book. The visions of Revelation are imminent not to our own viewpoint but at the time the book was written, at the time the revelation was given to John of Patmos. To read into the book a notion of a 2,000-year interim is to change fundamentally what the book is talking about.
With respect to ch. 17, the author makes clear where in the stream of time the events of Revelation are. Note the consistent use of the present tense in the angel's interpretation of the vision (17:10-18). The angel is telling the author that the entities symbolized in the vision are not things in the distant future but things that existed right then and there in the first century. The harlot "is (present tense) the great city that has authority over all the rulers of the earth". The harlot is not something in the distant future but the great city that in the first century was ruling over the earth. Similarly, the "seven hills" are not hills in the distant future but hills existing in the first century (again, note the present tense) on which the woman (= Rome) presently sits atop (17:9). What is still future is the Beast..."he is yet to come up from the Abyss" (17:8). Also the ten client kings have not yet received their power from the Beast (17:12), tho the kings do presently exist from the standpoint of the author (note again the present tense). But is the Beast in the far distant future, thousands of years away? No...the author is quite clear that the time is short: "The seven heads are also seven kings ("kings", note not "kingdoms"): five of them have already gone, one is here now, and one is yet to come; once here, he must stay for a short while. The Beast, who once was and now is not (present tense), is at the same time the eighth and one of the seven" (17:10-11). The author thus clearly marks his place in time....in the succession of 8 kings, he is living under the rule of King #6 and the Beast is King #8, and the intervening king who seperates the time of the author from the time of the end (for the Beast reigns at the end times), is merely King #7 who reigns only for "a short while". This text illustrates clearly the short-range eschatological worldview of the author.
My suggestion is to not read Revelation through a 20th/21st-century filter but to take it on its own terms. Read it as a first-century Christian would have. My reading is one that does not impose a requirement on the book that it refer to something in the distant future (contrary to what it itself says), but to follow what the text says and how it would have been understood by the first-century audience the book was designed for. It is very hard to miss the fact that the book is talking about the Rome, its persecution of Christians, and the hoped-for victory of Christians over the powers that be.
BTW, I am not an atheist. Nor does one need to be an atheist to read Revelation on its own terms.
