Benny Hinn: Now You See It, Now You Don't

[Doug]

Religious and scientific experts say there is strong evidence that American televangelist Benny Hinn performed a "genuine verifiable miracle" in Johannesburg on the weekend. According to the experts, Hinn and his colleagues made thousands of dollars disappear from the bank accounts of worshipers, before making the money reappear in offshore accounts.

...The miracle was widely publicised over the weekend by various websites, which reported that Pastor Todd Koontz, one of Hinn's on-stage colleagues, told worshippers that God would turn them into millionaires or billionaires within twenty-four hours if they donated $1000 by credit card.

According to these reports, hundreds of worshipers mobbed the stage with their credit cards after Koontz told them that the window of opportunity for the blessing was only two minutes.

This morning investigators from the Vatican, as well as representatives of the scientific community, agreed that a miracle had taken place.

"A fool and his money are easily parted, but this was something special," said head investigator, Cardinal Dante Purgatorio.

Psychologist Gunter Glibb agreed.

"To make that many adults behave in such a profoundly silly manner, to hand over thousands in return for a 120-second shot at being written a cheque by some sort of imaginary heavenly cashier — something more than idiocy, ignorance, naivety and greed was at work here."

The South African organisers of the weekend's gathering could not be reached for comment on the alleged miracle, but hotel staff said that they had last been seen checking out in the early hours of Sunday morning, "giving each high-fives and lighting cigars with smoldering R200 notes".

Meanwhile, journalists at all of South Africa's major media stables are eagerly waiting to hear from any person who became a millionaire or billionaire 24 hours after making their donation to Hinn's Miracle Crusade...

See here.

[RobertMadewell]

I have a hard time believing that people actually fell for this. Then again, I don't.

Wow! A thousand a pop. I wonder how much he raked in that night? Of course, Koontz's claim is testable. If no one becomes a millionaire, then Hinn and Koontz are frauds. Would they say, "You didn't become a millionaire because you didn't have enough faith?" to which the reply sould be, "I had enough faith to give you $1000, dingleberry!"

[L.Wood]

Did anyone see the ABC report done on Hinn and gang? It exposed his shizz and Hinn's "associates" came close to threatening the ABC production
crew when they showed up a second time. It was quite a story, now about 5 years old. ABC traced his alleged healings and debunked them.
Hinn claimed to have cured a heart condition on a famous athelete, George Foreman. It turned out Foreman's medical analysis was in error. He
never had a heart condition but Hinn used it to bilk others out of millions more.

Just google Benny Hinn and "expose" or "scandal" and you will get pages upon pages.

[Dardedar]

DAR
HBO also did an excellent debunk of this clown. Through regular and expensive healing sessions he gave a family with a terminal child false hope. They were pissed when the child died anyway. Powerful stuff.

Wiki has the blurb:

"In April 2001 HBO aired a documentary called "A Question of Miracles" on Hinn and fellow faith healer Reinhard Bonnke. [9] The director Antony Thomas told CNN's Kyra Phillips that they did not find cases where people were healed by Hinn.[10] Thomas told the New York Times about Hinn's claims, "If I had seen miracles, I would have been happy to trumpet it . . . but in retrospect, I think they do more damage to Christianity than the most committed atheist."[11]

Youtube has lots of the roasts of him here.

D.
-----------------------------------
The Bible says the test of a "prophet" is that if he ever gets anything wrong you should ignore him. He is a fake. Consider:

"Hinn made a number of unfulfilled (religious) prophecies for the 90s, such as God will destroy America's homosexual community in 1995 or the death of Fidel Castro,[7] election of the first female president of the USA,[8] the East Coast of the United States will be devastated by earthquakes,[7] etc., all before the third millennium. Hinn also appeared on the Trinity Broadcasting Network in October 1999 to claim that God had given him a vision that thousands of dead people would be resurrected after watching the network -- laying out a scenario of people placing their dead loved ones' hands on TV screens tuned into the station -- and that TBN would be "an extension of Heaven to Earth." Hinn has also claimed that Adam was a "superbeing" who could fly to the Moon; that God froze the Red Sea with his breath when he parted it; and that Christ would make a personal appearance at a crusade in Nairobi, Kenya in 2001." --ibid

[Doug]

Hinn also appeared on the Trinity Broadcasting Network in October 1999 to claim that God had given him a vision that thousands of dead people would be resurrected after watching the network -- laying out a scenario of people placing their dead loved ones' hands on TV screens tuned into the station -- and that TBN would be "an extension of Heaven to Earth."

DOUG
This is directed at the many families who have cadavers of their relatives right there in the TV room.

Hinn said that this resurrection phenomenon would happen mostly overseas and not so much in the U.S. Too much fact-checking ability here?