Many, many Bible scholars are in agreement as to what they mean. As for the mark of the beast, it doesn't matter whether it's a tattoo or a brand---it amounts to the same thing.
Just as Genesis clearly describes Noah's flood as a global event, Revelation lets us know that the prophecies and judgments are worldwide. The language is plain. Otherwise we are stuck with a bizarre hypothesis that God will only judge the Middle East, that Jesus will return only for the the people of that region. What happens to the rest of us---do we go off for an endless breakfast at the Waffle House? It just doesn't make sense.
The book of Revelation is the revelation of Jesus...from Him to man, to prepare us for what's coming, to let us know, as He said, what we should be watching for. He didn't set out to trick us or mislead us...He wants us to be ready.
Again, your claim that it's arrogant to think these are the end times just makes no sense. I don't even know what you mean by that. Say, for the sake of argument, that these aren't the last days, that they're five thousand years in the future. Would the people who live in those days, and who read the Bible and who watch for the signs as Jesus told them to, be arrogant for doing so? I don't get that.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to say the world will end tomorrow. It could for all I know. But God's timetable is not ours. Almost all of the signs and prophecies have been fulfilled; I recently read an article about Billy Graham, how he is struggling to show people that fact, to let them know there's not much time left.
Still, the end could be five, ten, twenty, or fifty years ahead. Personally I think fifty years is too long, but that's just me.
You say no one else experienced John's vision. Well, no one else shared any Biblical prophets' experiences. Are they all meaningless? Should we disregard them all? Would you have to witness them all in order to believe?
You say no one can say we're close...yet many are, including Billy Graham, as I mentioned. And that is because they have studied the signs so that they can know what to look for. Jesus instructed us to do this. So how can it be arrogance if He told us to do it? Doesn't matter who was thought to be the AntiChrist in times past. What matters is, have the prophecies been fulfilled? Hitler died in 1945, before Israel became the Jewish homeland again. That was one of the major end time prophecies. Do you realize that the Jews are the only ancient people to have come back together in one country after thousands of years of being scattered to the winds?
Honestly, I don't know if there's any point in going on with you. You say that seven years could mean something else...the Bible was compiled by fallible men, etc. It seems, from what you say, that you don't believe in the inerrancy of Holy Scripture as inspired by God and written by man...seems you think it has little more value than any other book. If you can't even take 7 years to mean what it says, there's no point here.
You don't have to be afraid of the end times, you know...not if you have Jesus.
It is arrogant to say “we’re living in the end times”, how is that not arrogant? You can’t possibly know what John saw. You say that prophecy has been definitively fulfilled, but you cannot possibly know that. May be close, even look identical to someone from your point of view but are those events without a doubt what Revelation spoke of? Possibly, but John could have been referring to a completely different event.
So, Revelation is world events? Then if we are living in the end times, then billions should have died recently, I wouldn’t be able to buy food without some proof I am part of the “in crowd”, and there would be one man controlling the entire world. But I still hear we are living in the end times. That is inherently arrogant. The end times to me means “seven-year Tribulation”. Otherwise, you are just saying it’s coming. Well the end has been coming for thousands of years. Religious leaders in all of those years have warned that prophecies have been met, that the end is near. But here we are, tick tick ticking along.