snnicky #fundie

snnicky #fundie youtube.com

(Benny Hinn "heals" a girl in a wheelchair)

Anyone who thinks these healings or miracles are faked or contrived, ask yourself why these "actors" have not gone into acting as a career-they could be millionaires IF they'd been acting.

Benny has been holding these meetings every? month for 25+ years-with no repeat "actors".

No-this is real-people do get healed-just like the Bible says.

71 comments

old comment by Horsefeathers

"Anyone who thinks these healings or miracles are faked or contrived, ask yourself why these "actors" have not gone into acting as a career-they could be millionaires IF they'd been acting."

"And the Oscar goes to... the guy who hobbled up the stairs!"

*crowd goes nuts*

Yeah, I just don't see it happening. It doesn't take a whole lot of talent to pretend you're sick in some not terribly well defined way. Hell, med students generally "diagnose" such actors in their medical training. It's not like you have to be an incredible actor or anything.

"Benny has been holding these meetings every? month for 25+ years-with no repeat "actors"."

So? Dupes are a dime a dozen. You probably don't even have to pay most of these people--they simply want the attention or, worse, really think they're sick and this jackass can cure them. Psychosomatic illnesses are probably pretty easy to cure when you have an overwhelming personality and the person looks up to you anyway. If such a person tells them they're cured, well then, they must be so they are. What a miracle.

"No-this is real-people do get healed-just like the Bible says."

Show me a valid scientific study that says this and I'll believe you. I have trouble with the credibility of your cited document.

old comment by

Apparently snnicky didn't see the HBO special which featured Hinn, in which they followed up on a few of his "miracles", and found that none of them actually had been healed. They had merely benefitted temporarily from the psychological effects of believing they had been healed.

They also showed some poor couple whom he was repeatedly bilking for more and more money, telling them that their vegetable of a son would be healed when they had given enough, and footage of him telling one of his huge audiences that some big economic disaster was on the horizon, and they should give him money immediately to gain protection from that disaster. He said the more money they gave him, the more protection they would have (as he passed out credit card slips, telling them not to forget to include the expiration dates of their cards).

Oh, yeah, he's a real miracle worker.

old comment by Bethie

Getting up out of a wheelchair doesn't have to be acting. On bad days or in large spaces, I use a wheelchair, but I almost always can walk. Freaking ticks me off when it's evident that people don't get that and look amazed or disgusted if I stand.

If it was like that, then yeah, the person might have tricked themselves into having more energy than usual, but that only lasts for a little while. Need to check in on the person, say, a week before and a week after.

Yeah, faith healing pisses me off.. for the false hope and for the blame. This will work if only you believe, if only you truly have faith, etc. Amounts to blaming people for being sick or disabled. Disgusting.

old comment by Xotan

Anyone who thinks these healings or miracles are faked or contrived, ask yourself why these "actors" have not gone into acting as a career-they could be millionaires IF they'd been acting.

=== Except that even for the most brilliant actor, breaking into Hollywood and the filmworld is mainly a matter of luck. Indeed, very often its sex appeal that determins success in movies.

Benny has been holding these meetings every? month for 25+ years-with no repeat "actors".

====A very ordinary person can act. In fact, anyone who tells a lie is basically acting. Are you lying?

No-this is real-people do get healed-just like the Bible says.

====If people really do get healed, as you say, then I am sincerely happy for them. However, such healings happen also in places other than fundamentalist meetings. They happen even among Catholics. The shrine of the Virgin at Lourdes has panels of doctors permanently there to assess healings. And of the number of healings that occur, they attribute only a miniscule number to Divine intervention. They are very cyinical in their approach. They know that there can be a placebo effect so they are far from your naive acceeptance, and therefore less open to being conned.

old comment by solomongrundy

I have to wonder why in a country so full of ambulance-chasing lawyers these 'faith-healing' charlatans haven't been sued for ever penny they have.

Xotan wrote:
The shrine of the Virgin at Lourdes has panels of doctors permanently there to assess healings. And of the number of healings that occur, they attribute only a miniscule number to Divine intervention. They are very cyinical in their approach. They know that there can be a placebo effect so they are far from your naive acceeptance, and therefore less open to being conned.

Heh, unfortunately for your argument, the 'miracles' were soooooo rare (read, non-existent) that the good doctors have now given up looking for them:

Doctors' Panel Won't Rule on 'Miracles' at Lourdes.
Doctors to stop judging if miracle healing occurs at Catholic shrine in Lourdes

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=6382335

Arggh, how do I make a link work here..?

Anyway,
The church relies on seven criteria devised in 1734 to decide miracle healing, such as the gravity of the ailment, the accuracy of an original medical diagnosis and the suddenness and durability of the healing.

"devised in 1734"? More than a hundred years before the 'germ theory' of disease was proposed?

'Lourdes' is all a sick joke based on the lunatic delusions of a peasant girl and the doctors have finally had the guts to agree so in public.

Things like this give me hope...

old comment by Giveitaday

Anyone who thinks these healings or miracles are faked or contrived, ask yourself why these "actors" have not gone into acting as a career-they could be millionaires IF they'd been acting

No they couldn't, I've seen better acting in my daughter's elementary school play. It doesn't take any talent to fool someone like yourself who so desperetly wants to believe it. You will convince yourself no matter how contrived it seems.

Benny has been holding these meetings every? month for 25+ years-with no repeat "actors".

And you can testify to this because you've been to every single Benny Hinn service and can say with 100% certainty that there has never been a repeat actor? I didn't think so.

No-this is real-people do get healed-just like the Bible says

So why can't Hinn heal an amputee? Why is it you never hear about terminal illnesses being healed wherever Hinn goes? Why is it Hinn can only seem to heal people when the cameras are on? Why Hinn? Why not all preachers?

old comment by Will B.

Shoot, can't remember who told this story... Might have been James Randi, I know he's blown the cover of at least one "faith healer" vulture.

Anyway, someone in the skeptical community has a story about having gone to a faith healer and seen an old woman in a wheelchair get up and walk after being "healed." He asked her afterward if it was her wheelchair, and she said no, it belonged to the guys running the show. Turns out they'd just taken a random person who looked a little wobbly on their feet walking in, told them to sit in a wheelchair (because they'd be more comfortable, allegedly) and then, voila, they can walk later in the show! Um, because they'd walked INTO the show in the first place... But hey, no one watching knows that, so it looks like a miracle!

snnicky #fundie youtube.com

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