I came across an apology from 2011, and back-tracked to try to figure out what happened.
This took place on fivedoves.com, a website started by John Tng, Jim Bramlett, and three like-minded people in 1997, to “proclaim… the soon return of the Lord Jesus.” Emphasis on soon. Return as in Rapture.
One dove. “Fly to him I love and tell him the world is ending. Soon. He needs to get over here if he wants to see my sash.” (Note small dog.)
Rather than call themselves 5 Guys Pizza – both trite and misleading – they went with Five Doves. Doves typically symbolize peace, love, or a messenger, and I guess messenger is the principal meaning here. Now, all the people in the community are called Doves.
I am sad to say that the early messages about the soonness of it all are no longer on the website. Who’s interested in old promises, and subsequent old laments? Who wants yesterday’s coos?
The Doves like numerology, which they use to prove things about the imminent End of Days. They like disaster news – clearly heralding the Apocalypse. They say Obama is the antichrist – and that’s good. It means “our departure is soon (possibly this year!)” as noted in 2010. They like letters, as in New Testament epistles, and they call their posts the Latter Day Letters. (Judging by photos posted, they also like small dogs.)
Two doves of the love-symbolizing type.
In 2011, there was a lot of feeling that 2011 was The Year. As one Dove wrote: “…I have visited your website concerning the rapture being on January 27/27 of this year. Brother, I hope you are right, but don’t let it get you down if were still here on the 28th…. I thought we would be raptured in 2010, but we are still here. I do believe that some time in 2011 we will finally see our savior face to face, but I just don’t know when in 2011. I’m just watching for our lord on a daily basis now, since we know that we are living in the last days of the church age. God bless you brother, and I hope to see you and all the Doves in the air soon.”
Another Dove dipped her toe into numerology: “I saw this on face book … I was born in 1964 this year I will be 47+64 = 111. Add yours up and see how it comes out the last two of the year you were born and how old you will be this year.”
Dove Barry Amundsen was also enthusiastic: “This year we will experience 4 unusual dates…. 1/1/11, 1/11/11, 11/1/11, 11/11/11 …. NOW go figure this out…. take the last 2 digits of the year you were born plus the age you will be this year and it WILL EQUAL TO 111….
“Could this be the year, and is that why all the 111s or 11 11s have been seen over the years leading to this year?”
Three doves of the turtle sort.
Then Joseph threw cold water on the first poster’s notion: “…all what everyone is doing by adding their birth year and age this year, is the number of years since the year 1900. Of course, it’s going to add up to 111. Next year it will add up to 112, etc. There is nothing spooky, weird, or supernatural, just basic math.”
A few days later, so did another Dove, Vonda Wood, giving lists of years to demonstrate: “Go ahead and try it for any year and you will find it works for every birth year in every year! Again, I would like to support Joseph in stating there is nothing remarkable about this year. …Joseph was simply pointing out that there is nothing particularly remarkable about the math as it relates to 2011 – the math works for every year.”
Nothing remarkable! Oh, that was too much. Amundsen replied: “…you state that there is nothing remarkable about this year as relates to the math and birth years because every year has a similar feature with the same math and it works for every year.
“But I think you have missed the main point. While there may be a pattern of results to this kind of math and birthdates, there are no other years that have the series of 11s in them and no other result is 111 except this year….
Four doves of peace.
“So, the point is that 111 is in itself significant. No other result has been seen by people over the years to the point that it has become a sort of phenomenom that no one could explain.
“11, 111, and 11 11, are even associated with the twin towers being that they looked like a giant 11 and that so many 11s were associated with the day they were attacked and destroyed….
“So while the pattern is certainly there throughout, there is only one year within that pattern that has all 11s for everyone no matter when they were born!
“If that is not remarkable to you, I just wonder what is?”
Apparently this constituted unaccustomed savagery among the Doves.
Vonda Wood responded. She gave some context, saying that in the last few months people had been “getting pretty rough,” making assumptions about others, and even suggesting those who believe in a “pre-trib Rapture” are like a seed falling on stony ground. “That presumes my walk with God is superficial…. I find that judgmental.”
Five doves. The one in back is being condescending.
As for a certain “regular contributor”’s harsh post she writes “Thanks to this poster, I now understand what they find exciting about this – I simply do not share this excitement…. I guess he is suggesting I am a person that finds nothing remarkable….”
She argues that is okay “for those of us mathematically inclined” not to see ones everywhere, and it is also okay to see ones everywhere and find that remarkable. She cites Matthew, Luke, and John, on a Judge-Not theme. “So in love I request that we love and respect one another – we will all need to love and respect each other in heaven! Lets go easy on each other as a testimony. Remember it is ok to not share the same viewpoint on such insignificant things as seeing 1s and related math. it is ok to believe in a pre trib, mid trib, post trib, or pan trib without losing one’s salvation. All these things will not matter 10,000 years from now.”
That got through to Barry Amundsen, producing the apology I had run across:
Dear Vonda and Joseph and Doves,
Thank you for your responses and I do want to apologize. I actually regretted, after sending it, the way I ended my post with a condescending remark and even thought about revising it and resending it to John asking if he could post the revised one instead of the first one with that ending. It bothered me and I should have done it but I thought it would only make more trouble for John so I decided against it.
I am so sorry Vonda and Joseph and Doves. I wish I would learn to be more sensitive and think about what I say and how it will feel to others. I guess it has to do with the years that I have been waiting for the rapture and each year I grab hold of the dates as they are suggested and count the hours to those dates only to watch them time and time again roll by and leave me again disappointed. I would never have believed that we would still be here in 2011 if you asked me back years ago. When Kevin Drake and his “God’s Timeline” site was coming up all the time back a few years ago, I admit I wanted it to be wrong because his selected date was just too far off for me. But now we have arrived at last at his date. Well, I was just looking for any additional reason for this to be the year, including something as flimsy as 11s in the year dates. So for someone to pop the bubble offhanded as though such a silly thing as that is nothing to get excited about, it just caught me as a jab at my hope.
I’m so tired. Maybe the 11 thing is nothing after all and if we are still here after the next couple days, then even Kevin’s dates may be wrong too.
Half good apology. He’s specific about what he did (condescending remark). He shows
Really? Say more about this plummeting to Hell.
remorse, and knows what he needs to do so it won’t happen again. But I think there’s too much about him and his agony. Admittedly, this audience understands that kind of disappointment. But they’ve experienced the same thing, the same let-downs, the same unfulfilled hopes – what makes him special?
As it happened, they were still there after the next couple days. Soon Doves were saying the Rapture would come in March. Or May. Now in 2015, they’re saying it will come in weeks, not years. Although the December 7, 2015 one doesn’t seem to have happened.
However, one poster thinks it’ll be December 31 or maybe January 1, 2016. Run the numbers and you’ll see. “Amazingly it’s 5 months from the reappearnce of the Bethlehem Star on 6/30, and 5 means Grace.”
But if it doesn’t happen, bear up. Be your best self. I do not want to hear any condescending remarks.
How do you find time to review the writings of religious nut cases when there are sheathbills awaiting your attention?
Like so many birds, sheathbills never apologize. Ask any penguin. Thus I am forced to turn my attention elsewhere from time to time.
My main response is, “oh, these poor people.” Because, SERIOUSLY…
I’m still at sea with how the number 5 in birdlife could mean anything at all about grace, but I suspect I will dip into disparaging remarks if I continue…
Mainly, just don’t condescend me.
Thank you.
PS Happy New Year. I’ve made it well past 11am ET.
And you are one of the many sleepers!! Yeh the bible warned us about you latter day critical nutcases.
Sumac, this is Barry Amundsen! You posted this commentary on the Five Doves which I found quite by “accident” while searching for any information about the apparent disappearance of the Five Doves site from the internet which I only just discovered now too having left off being a regular follower or “Dove” some years back. What are the odds that I’d stumble so quickly on a post that not only sums up a brief history of that website but spends much of the article focused on me and my apologies for getting excited about a date or silly numbers that turn out to be nothing and then having to apologise for my treatment of others who didn’t share my enthusiasm …? I was just telling my wife who was the one that pointed out to me that the Doves Site was gone, how that John must have finally had enough and called it quits after so long of nothing happening after every year thinking it would be the year… Well, I just wanted to say that I consider it a privilege to be counted worthy to be placed in the same company with Noah and Lot who were regarded as nutcases in their time because they knew what was coming and tried to warn others. The Bridegroom has tarried longer than expected but will arrive suddenly just the same at some point. Nothing will ever be the same from that moment on.
Wow! Thanks for commenting.
Hi Sumac,
My name is Randy Bullock. I was one of the original Five Doves. The site was started by and is completely the product of Tng. The other three Doves were Jim Bramlett, Tony MacCormack and Paul Brown. Jim, Tony, Paul and I were having a round house email discussion of a pamphlet I had written called “The Appointed Times” when, somehow, Tng got involved and he posted my pamphlet on a website. The website then evolved into whatever it is now. Somewhere along the line, someone sent Tng a drawing of five doves so Tng then named the site after the drawing. Tng’s name is not “John.” He is a Singaporean who just adopted the name John. I do not recall ever seeing Tng’s last name, and as I understood it, Tng was his first name.
Jim was a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel, Tony a man from England, and Paul a very successful businessman. I have been somewhat successful myself, with very notable exceptions, as a businessman. None of us knew each other prior to discussing my pamphlet, but the four of us became quite good friends and we have kept up communication over the years, although none of us has kept much contact with Tng. Jim did occasionally post on the Five Doves, but Tony, Paul and I were mostly absent. In my case, I went through a series of worldly problems and did not even open the Five Doves site for many years. Incidentally, Jim died just a few days ago. Tony, Paul and I are all doing fine.
The pamphlet I wrote detailed several “Timetables” that I thought showed that the Rapture would be on May 14, 1997. Of course, that didn’t happen, and that means I was wrong. The pamphlet had a distribution of about 30,000 and I will point out I did not charge for them. I personally bought them and gave them all away. Most were sent to people in Europe since Tony put some ads in papers over there and sent them to whoever asked for one. Jim gave a lot of them away in the United States.
I appreciate what your article says. The website now is a bunch of far right Christian extremists with whom I greatly disagree. Tng’s long drawn out exercise of trying to prove Obama is the antichrist with his numerology is patently absurd. And the great bulk of the emails he posts are also absurd. And, I will add, I do not think Jim, Tony or Paul agrees with his numerology. I remember Tng was constantly bringing his “mathematics” up in the five way discussion we were having and no one else seemed in much agreement.
Earlier this year, I sent Tng an email to be posted with which he evidently took offense. I refused to call him “John” and instead addressed it to “Tng” and I disputed the ridiculous accusations he has made against Obama. He did not publish my email nor did he send me a personal response.
If you might want to answer me about any of this or if you would have any questions, feel free to send me an email.
Good article and great pictures!
Randy, thank you for your comment, and for the interesting look you offer of the Five Doves history. Condolences on the death of Jim Bramlett.
When Hell = 37 Paradise = 73
Satan = 55, Judas = 55, Judas Iscariot = 149
14 9 is day 257, the 55th prime
Day 6×6×6 and 149 day
s remain