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December 27th, 2011
01:42 PM ET
Reward offered for fugitive pastorBy Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor (CNN) - A pastor on the lam from Las Vegas now has a price on his head. Otis Holland, the 55-year-old former pastor of United Faith Church, skipped court appearances and has been missing for a year. He was accused of sexually assaulting teenage congregants, CNN affiliate KLAS reported. A $10,000 reward has been offered for information about the former pastor. Christine Shea, owner of Bad Girl Bail Bonds, told KLAS that Holland skipped court appearances after she posted $30,000 to get him out of jail. CNN's Belief Blog – all the faith angles to the day's top stories "I have guilt that I helped get him back out on the streets," she told KLAS. KLAS reported that Holland was arrested in December 2010 and in January amid allegations that he abused congregants who were as young as 7 years old.
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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I wish someone would write an atheist story so we could talk about Robespierre,Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Kim and all the other murdering atheists.
What an idiotic comment. More people have been killed in the name of religion than all wars combined. Anyone can be a murderer. Get over it already.
European History of not all that long ago is littered with a thousand plus years of all the bloody wars of the Catholics vs. the Protestants, or vs. any other not sufficiently Catholic groups.
Except atheists don't claim to be better than religious, or try to enact laws to force their views on other people.
I respect the committed atheist far more than the religious who wants to force by law his/her beliefs on others.
That is not correct! Stalin and Mao killed off 200 million.
What's an atheist story? Stories are inanimate, and as such, are unlikely to have any religious following.
"That is not correct! Stalin and Mao killed off 200 million."
That wasn't in the name of atheism. That was in the name of communism and state. So calling those deaths because of atheism is like calling every murder a murder in the name of religion just because the murderer was a Christian. So no, try again.
Bill you mean to tell me that science has never been wrong.
When has religion ever been right? At least Science admits mistakes and keeps searching for the truth. And doesn't conduct mass murder of anyone who disagrees along the way.
Nowhere have I said that. Nice try at changing the subject, though, you wimp.
Ah. An intellectual name caller. That'll get us somewhere helpful.
No I am telling you that. Science is neither right nor wrong. Its a process of trial and error and peer review. Go back to school yeesh and this time try learning something...
The beautiful thing about science is it's obligation to the truth. If a concept, even a concept once believe to be beyond reproach, is proven wrong, it is acknowledged as wrong and the effort is made to find the true answer. Religion, on the other hand, discourages questions and claims that it is the truth without providing even an ounce of verifiable proof.
Well put tallulah. Prior to publishing ideas they must be rigorously tested. Granted there are flawed experiments and scientists that lack integrity and falsify results. However when these are discovered those at fault are essentially run out of the field. As scientists we have an obligation to the truth as well as a responsibility to conduct our research responsibly.
Sorry Kenrick, but you seem... slow.
You want a good answer? Ask the right question.
It's not about science being wrong. Science itself cannot be right or wrong. Science is the process of studying something.
Comparing Science to Religion is like comparing Apples to chimpanzees. It just doesn't work.
And there are plenty of scientific theories that are wrong.. that's why they're called THEORIES.
You seem to like muddying the point and trying to derail the conversation here. The conversation is about child-molesting priests, what does science have to do with that?
Nothing!
Hi George! God "spoken" to you today yet?
More proof that yet another of God's choosen doesn't actually believe in God, he just pretends to. They preach that God is always watching & knows everything you do. They wouldn't molest a child while there Mother was physically standing next to them watching .. so why can they do it while God is standing there watching? Because they don't actually believe in a God.
That's a very simple way to put it.
I think that it is because they don't believe in God, but the process of becoming a priest damages the psyche so much, that it actually damages the morality of that individual.
Another reason for religion to go the way of the dinosaur.
Mankind's 3 greatest inventions.
1) An invisible, incommunicado, unaccountable, god
2) The collection plate to capitalize on (1)
3) Two collection plates mounted on an axle, to carry heavy loads around.
very funny. thanks for that.
"A church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints."
Abigail Van Buren
If the god that the Christians claim actually existed, we would not need hospitals.
Mike from CT,
Re "Then explain all the scientist that were Christian...or the first founding fathers",
seriously, stop trying to shove that garbage at us. You must know the solid rebuttals to that by now. Back in the day, scientists were TORTURED if they didn't toe the Christian church line. It was only a brave few that were able to push back, but those who did have helped set us free from your sick Christian beliefs. And the founders were predominantly non-Christian and understood the need to separate religion and state.
Know where this is from? "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
@truthprevails according to ur scientific atheisism i should be worm food but im not so ur science has been proven wrong.i dont need to prove anything to u just god.in the end truth will prevail and u will be worm food rotting in the fields of the nepholeme.dont bother trying to find god at that point he wont be there for u cuz u spent ur life in a failed attempt to prove he doesnt exist.u can beleive what u want to believe but i know what i know.
I'd reply if I could make any of the gibberish in your post. Are you actually an adult?
Hail Satan!
Raggot, is that you? Geronimo!
your auto correct also failed.... don't text and walk
I am an atheist and personally have not experienced any evidence that would indicate that there is an afterlife. Which to me makes every day that I have on this earth all the more valuable. I work hard, treat others with respect and make the best decisions that I can with the information that I have. If I die and find out that there is a God, I would like to think that I would not be judged merely on a lack of faith. As a child I pretended to believe, but as I grew older I realized that I was just going through the motions. Until I have experiences that prove otherwise I will remain an atheist, and if a creator has a problem with the way i lead my life then so be it.
Stop thinking, you're hurting yourself.
Leave the thinking to those who are capable of it, you seem to have lost that ability.
All I hear coming from you is "Baaaa.... baaaaaaaa".
Ranting against religious folks does not stop it either. Are you interested in stopping it and helping people to turn their lives around or do you just like to rant?
Don't you just love the religious hypocrites
Most of us just call them "human beings". Even if we all knew 100% of the time the exact right thing to do, do you think we would always do them? Of course not, for to be human is to have failings.
@Ceri
Yes we all have failings, don't think anyone is going to argue with that. However that does not excuse child molestation. The fact is that the pastor by the nature of his profession preaches to others to teach them how to lead a christian life, while at the same time preying upon innocent children. This is undeniably hypocritical by nature, so not sure what point you were trying to make.
Not only is it blatently unchrisitian to molest children, the fact that he was a religious figure can understandably damage the children's faith. It's been a while since I studied christianity but I believe harming a child's faith is one of the "unforgivable sins".
@SMH 2012
You said, "Not only is it blatently unchrisitian to molest children, the fact that he was a religious figure can understandably damage the children's faith. It's been a while since I studied christianity but I believe harming a child's faith is one of the "unforgivable sins""
You appear to be more appalled by the possibility of someone's faith being shaken than the abuse that took place. If that is the case, you must be a truly sick human being.
@Linca
Clearly you misread or misunderstood my posts. I am not religious and do not believe that faith is a virtue. I was just stating that the original poster was accurate in calling this man a hypocrite and questioning Ceri's response. Your personality profiling abilites appear to be as weak as your reading comprehension.
@SMH 2012
You said, "Clearly you misread or misunderstood my posts.".
Of course I disagree, since you also said: "I believe harming a child's faith is one of the "unforgivable sins"" (emphasis mine). You clearly state that you believe that harming a child's faith is an unforgivable sin.
That of course can still mean a number of things. One being that you merely recall what you learned about christianity and its sins, the other being that you are a despicable human being.
You then added new information that, had it been obvious from your earlier post, would have removed the ambiguity: "I am not religious and do not believe that faith is a virtue.".
You said, "Your personality profiling abilites appear to be as weak as your reading comprehension."
Of course not. Both are spot on. I said, "If that is the case, you must be a truly sick human being." (again, added emphasis for clarity). So, if that is not the case, then I have no opinion.
Another example of people relying on faith, instead of common sense..... Church has become tainted by these abusers and the system needs reformed.
I find it interesting that you call religion a "system". An example of the religion industry.
Of course! All organized religion is a system, one that can be used (and abused) by those in power..... is this too complicated for you?
George, your reaction is to insult me?! I believe religion is an industry and your statement subtly agreed with that & I liked it.
Pssst, George: religion and the Christian church ARE the problem. Well, two of the problems, anyway.
Reformed? What do you do with something that is so broken that it's beyond repair?
You throw it out and start again. This is what needs to happen with ALL religions.
Another so-called religious perv.....
Everyone is susceptible to temptation. I wonder why some men are drawn to molest boys. Have they been molested themselves? I am not satisfied that this has been studied enough so that we can prevent this from continuing. How can we protect our sons from molestors? How can we prevent our sons from becoming molestors? No mother wants to believe her son would grow up to do this. Is there any treatment possible for molestors? Just ranting against molestors does not stop it.
So what is God doing? Apparently God's not helping the followers avoid temptation anymore than the rest of us, it appears even less so with God's "help".
Yeah, who cares about the girls who get molested or anything, unless it's a boy being molested. That's when the real research comes in?
Molested or not, he knew he was doing wrong. He was sick. Anyone who does this is sick, if they do it to a boy or girl. It's sick. It's not a disease, it's not a "disability" and it's not something they can't help. It's being plain sick and evil. It's knowing you're wrong but doing it anyways. Ruining someones life and not caring. It's sick for anyone to do this to a boy or girl
Is there any treatment for people who like to listen to Lady Gaga? People make choices. What can be done? Who cares why they make the choices they do. What matters is that they don't have the freedom to make them anymore
Exactly Kris ... If they couldn't help it they'd do it in the mall or at McDonalds, but they don't .. they try to hide it, proving they have control & know it's wrong.
OF course we care about girls( I am one) but I was using this as an example. I think we have done a lot of thinking about punishment and I am sure I would want the person punished severely if it happened to my daughter. But I am interested in prevention. Does anyone have ideas?
Start with an easier subject. How do you prevent people from shoplifting? Go around the entire globe and make studies based on what every person is thinking about any given subject, and then point them to the right therapy group that deals with kleptomania, arson, littering, child molestation... etc? Prevention starts with the offender, and the desire to change. We have plenty of psychiatrists and mental inpatient clinics if these pedophiles wanted to make use of them. But... they don't.
Hey dot, your feminazi side is showing.
Just because someone used "male" in a post instead of the widely accepted status quo of "female" in the post, you fly off a handle? You're being pretty silly, and I'm being nice in using that word.
I could do what you do... "What, boys aren't worth consideration? Girls are so important that when a guy is mentioned, it's bad? Really? Are you stupid, or something?"
But I'm not going to, why? Because I'm better than you.
I do agree, whether you molest a boy or girl, it's WRONG.
But I don't believe that child molesters are broken beyond repair. I think that they have something mixed up in their heads that doesn't allow them to make the same moral connections as the rest of us. They're sick. As with any sickness, there is the ability to cure it... the question is... how?
Just another case of a 'leader' abusing people with his position. We need leaders, not this kind of trash.
We need to stop thinking of preachers as "leaders".
A priest is no more a "leader" than a trash collector is a "spiritual guru".
Priests are people who have devoted their lives to living in ignorance, and to spreading that ignorance as far and wide as possible. That's not a good thing. If anything, priests should be pariahs JUST for being a priest. A priest shouldn't be a celebrated position, the religious folk have it all ass-backwards, as usual.
Don't blame the gays. This guy molested girls.
Bigtalls.c⊙m ..a nice club for tàll people to date. You need not to be beautiful or handsome,if you are over 5'8", as long as you are tàll, you are very popular here.
I think all of you who respone to this article are SICK, SICK, SICK......
All believers in Christianity are SICK, SICK, SICK.....
John, time for you to "respone". Go take a nap.
*Cough cough* I have been feeling the onset of a cold these last few days...
bonez2- I don't disagree with you however what is first, the Bible tells us that God who is light(Energy) is the first and science has proven that Energy is what started the Universe.
Way to try to draw parallels between the bible, a book of fiction by many authors (albeit with a few historical markers thrown in to keep it alive), and modern science, but you will fail. How about you get into all the science that the bible gets wrong, such as how diseases propagate, the shape of the earth, the mustard seed, speciation, and on and on and on and on.
As far as any scientific merit goes, your babble has none. Keep your mental mast-urbations in that regard to yourself.
Bill – Obviously you have some very strong feelings about Christianity just as many people have strong feelings about their faith. Why do you feel it necessary to use such abusive language when addressing someone who has a different opinion than yourself? Does it really matter that much to you that someone doesn't think the way you want them to or do you just get off on demeaning others? Maybe the Bible isn't scientifically accurate, but a book that preaches love, kindness and forgiveness (in the latter half at least) isn't harming anyone. Yes, there are those who go a little nutso in their religious piousness, but most Christians are just normal everyday people. Even if you don't accept religion itself, you could at least take the message of loving thy neighbor into consideration. In otherwords, chill dude. We all have our own opinions.
Bill is just like a lot of the atheists on here (not all of them of course). Many of them seem to be rude and nasty people.
What ever became of Bob and the goat thing?
Bob must have found himself a nice goat and they are living happily ever after.
As usual, the Christians respond only with attacks, and with no substance. Look at my initial paragraph. If you disagree with it, get into the specifics, and present your reasons and evidence for what you are claiming. Otherwise, your attempted counter-posts have no merit, and I will remain convinced that your religion is just very harmful fiction.
@Kenrick Benjamin
I'm assuming that the point that you are trying to make is that science and faith are not mutually exclusive. My background is in molecular genetics so I cannot comment in great detail on the work being done by theoretical physicists, studying the origins of the universe. I respect the faith of other's however I also would strongly caution anyone that compares the bible to scientific research. It is less a book based on facts and more a collection of stories displaying a people's understanding of their God. The strength (and weakness) of the scientific approach is that it is limited to phenomena that can be reproducibly so. The scriptures are merely literary works that convey the feelings of those that have written and adapted them over the ages.
I am just pointing out that you shouldnt use science to support or weaken your religious ideals as they are outside of it's scope.
typo above
"reproducibly so" should read "reproducibly tested"
The writers of the Bible were not scientists. They did not have the scientific knowledge that we now have. You can't expect it to be completely accurate as far as science goes. The Bible is intended to be a book of history about people's faith in God.
J.W, "The writers of the Bible were not scientists. " You sure got that right.
But then, how is it that the supposed word of god is allowed by god to exist when it gets si much of science wrong? If you are next going to counter that again by saying that the bible isn't the word of god, then why does your omnipotent being let itself get so misrepresented if it has good intentions, and without the bible, what do you have to go on for what your god wants from you? For that matter, why does a "god" need or want anything, including human subjects? Is your deity a lonely egomaniac, perhaps?
Crazy, what you Christians believe. The whole sorry, deluded enterprise of the Christian religion should collapse on itself. In time, hopefully, it will.
*so*, not "si"...
Whatever inaccuracies are there I don't feel like they distract from the overall message. The book is about the people's relationship with God, so the point of the book is how people felt about God and about what he did. It is ok with me if you wish for Christianity to die out. I guarantee that it won't happen.
Bill
“ how is it that the supposed word of god is allowed by god to exist when it gets si much of science wrong?”
=>The Bible does not get the science wrong. It is people who take historical representation, allegory or metaphor as the literal word of God or vise versa that creates the problem.
“why does your omnipotent being let itself get so misrepresented if it has good intentions,”
=>When your read the Bible you see that it is mans tendency to reject the simple truth and direction from God and go with his own desire. You are not suggesting God remove our ability to think for ourselves?
“ without the bible, what do you have to go on for what your god wants from you?”
=>We need the Bible that is why 54 million copies were distributed last year alone.
“ For that matter, why does a "god" need or want anything, including human subjects?”
=>All we can go on is what the Bible says. God loves us. Does not need or want anything simply showers out His love and creative ability. Some say it is a reflection of His Glory i.e. it is who God is.
To paraphrase Richard Dawkins
"Chrisitians are atheists when it comes to all religions in the world save one, atheists just take that one step further"
Eventually Christianity will evolve into a different belief system, assuming the human species survives long enough.
SMH2012
Not actually, Christians know the difference between manmade gods and our Creator. Your conclusion of life is a step further in that it goes into nothingness. Nothingness is a manmade concept just as you claim other gods and afterlife stories to be. How is it that your manmade concept is beter than all the other manmade concepts that came before?
What is interesting is that you cannot tell the difference between your manmade concept and something that comes from outside of man, outside of your own existence.
Fred, the bible not only gets the science wrong, but it actually contradicts itself on many points of science. Let's lift the veil on your bizarro Christian delusions a little, shall we:
First, how do you think diseases spread? Let's see what you think, and then look at whether your own view of that is consistent with the bible or science.
fred, re the 54 million bible copies last year, the Harry Potter series is currently more popular. Both works belong in the fiction category, though. I'd also wager that fewer copies of the Potter books wound up stuffed in corners of desks,shelves, and closets, unread, collecting dust. Best use of the bible is as a door stop.
There are actually better lessons to be learned about life and courage from Harry Potter than from the bible, which has guidances to some awful cruelty througout. Not that I advocate Potter as the new religion, nor would the author, but since you've fallen into the ad populism trap, well, you're trapped.
Sue
The 54 million is on the low end of estimates. I did not think the last Potter was that popular, then again magic can spell bound an audience. Sometimes on this web site I could use that cloak of invisibility.
Bill
If you wish have an intelligent discussion about stochastic epidemic models and the Old Testament methods of localizing disease you best wait until Q comes on line about 10:30 tonight.
Is there a particular ceremonial or other biblical issue related to disease you interested in?
fred, grow some courage between your legs and answer the question.
Bill
I suspect you will drag me into the topic of disease from more than 6,000 years ago because otherwise the question is of little value. The Bible does a fairly good job of associating contact and keeping clean / pure as ways to avoid different disease. Most common forms of disease were prevalent then and now.
The Bible does not address cancer in dinosaur bones. That was not a concern with the purpose of the Bible.
fred, last chance, grow some courage between your legs and answer the question about how diseases spread, not about supposed purity and cleanliness.
The bible is very explicit about disease propagation, and very far wrong. You are failing even to know your own religion.
Bill
In the Bible God lays out blessings and curses so in short the buck stops there (starts there). In Job we see God allowed him to be riddled with painful disease. In Genesis we see Adam & Eve had their days limited and death entered due to original sin.
Science referes to disease within the theory of evolution.
So, fred, you lack the courage to answer the question. All you have done is try to change the subject, repeatedly. You spineless coward.
fred is demonstrably a spineless wimp.
Bill
I have no idea what you are looking for as to the topic of disease in the Bible. So, make your case and I would be happy to reply if I don't die of some dreaded disease before you step up to the plate.
fred, you know the question posed to you. Read back. Then grow some courage between your legs and actually try to answer it .
DoA? Please say DoA!!!
So what, he got on his knees, put his hands together and spoke to god by using a little boys pen is. For most male christian leaders that's called praying, why are people freakin out? They should fear the turbin dude who uses a floor mat to pray on, that's much worse then using a 7 year olds pen is.
Busted you have just reached the lowest part of your life.
Did you watch the video? He preyed on girls. Where's your imagination leading you?