Is LAUGHTER Really Good for the Soul?

rd2, laughter is the best medicine, for sure. :thumbsup:

As for that Irishman on the plane he was probably the only one who would admit to his calamity. :laugh::laugh::laugh:

 

rd2, it would appear that out of 80 viewers of your post no one has a sense of humor.

...I wonder why?

 

I've got a few favs that I will post later, as I need to get to my desk computer to copy from WORD.
I'm not gonna try to type them on this &@ iPad. (It's very convenient, but it don't agree w/ my spelling very much!

 

Why didn't all that work for Jackie Gleason?

 

Why didn't all that work for Jackie Gleason?

Most likely because he smoked four packs of cigarettes a day. That's amazing.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Gleason

 

Here are 3 of my favorites:

[FONT=&quot]I Two men were sitting next to each other at a bar. After a while, one guy looks at the other and says, "I can't help but think, from listening to you, that you're from Ireland." [/FONT]

The other guy responds proudly, "Yes, that I am!"

The first guy says, "So am I! And where about from Ireland might you be?"

The other guy answers, "I'm from Dublin, I am"

The first guy responds, "Sure and begorra, and so am I! And what street did you live on in Dublin?"

The other guy says, "A lovely little area it was, I lived on McCleary Street in the old central part of town."

The first guy says, "Faith & it's a small world, so did I! And to what school would you have been going?"

The other guy answers, "Well now, I went to St. Mary's of course."

The first guy gets really excited, and says, "And so did I. Tell me, what year did you graduate?"

The other guy answers, "Well, now, I graduated in 1964."

The first guy exclaims, "The Good Lord must be smiling down upon us! I can hardly believe our good luck at winding up in the same bar tonight. Can you believe it, I graduated from St. Mary's in 1964 my own self."

About this time, another guy walks into the bar, sits down, and orders a beer. The bartender walks over shaking his head & mutters, "It's going to be a long night tonight, the Murphy twins are drunk again."




II A man was walking along a California beach and stumbled across an old lamp. He picked it up and rubbed it and out popped a genie.

The genie said, "OK, OK. You released me from the lamp, blah blah blah. This is the fourth time this month and I'm getting a little sick of these wishes so you can forget about three. You only get one wish!"

The man sat and thought about it for a while and said, "I've always wanted to go to Hawaii but I'm scared to fly and I get very seasick. Could you build me a bridge to Hawaii, so I can drive over there to visit?"

The genie laughed and said: "That's impossible. Think of the logistics of that! How would the supports ever reach the bottom of the Pacific? Think of how much concrete...how much steel!! No, think of another wish."

The man said "OK" ... and tried to think of a really good wish. Finally, he said: "I've been married and divorced four times. My wives always said that I didn't care and that I was insensitive." "So, I wish that I truly understood women.... how they feel, what they're thinking when they give me the silent treatment, knowing why they're crying, knowing what they really want when
they say nothing, knowing how to make them truly happy...."

After a few moments of deep thought the genie responded: "You want that bridge two lanes or four?"




III Have you heard about the man who brought a very limp dog into the vet's clinic?
As he lay the dog on the table, the doctor pulled out his stethoscope, placing the receptor on the dog's chest. After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said, "I'm sorry, but your dog has passed away."

"What?" screamed the man. "How can you tell? You haven't done any testing on him or anything. I want another opinion!"

With that, the vet turned and left the room. In a few moments, he returned with a Labrador Retriever. The Retriever went right to work, checking the poor dead dog out thoroughly. After a considerable amount of sniffing, the Retriever sadly shook his head and said, "Woof."

The vet then took the Labrador out and returned in a few moments with a cat, who also checked out the poor dog on the table. As had his predecessors, the cat sadly shook his head and said, "Meow". He then jumped off the table and ran out of the room.

The veterinarian handed the man a bill for $600.

The dog's owner went postal. $600! Just to tell me my dog is dead? Why, this is outrageous!"

The vet shook his head sadly and explained. "If you had taken my word for it, it would have been $50, but with the Lab work and the cat scan..."

 

I have heard sermons that weren't meant to be funny, but I laughed my head off.

 

Wow, poor guy, I hope you didn’t give the person a complex doing that. :tongue3:

 

Proverbs 17:22

“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.”

Laughing is good for you even if it does begin with the release of adrenaline and other stress hormones.

Whether you are tickled or reacting to a good joke, at least seven different centers in the brain react in various ways. Your response begins with the release of stress hormones. Your normal breathing rhythm gets laughter interrupted, and various neurotransmitters, including dopamine, are released.

And, yes, your brain also interprets the tickle so that you cannot tickle yourself since your brain knows when your own fingers are involved. Scientists also believe that as you begin laughing, your saliva glands begin to secrete extra immune compounds. Antibodies and virus-killing T-cells are also released in larger doses.

Your heartbeats also increase, and your blood pressure goes up to support the muscle spasms that result from your laugh. Those muscle spasms are actually a good aerobic exercise. In fact, one minute of a good laugh is said to be as good as ten minutes of exercise on a rowing machine!

Besides promoting social bonds, laughing is indeed good for you in many ways. Tickling is a common way that parents bond with their young children. And wholesome humor can cheer the heart and raise the spirits. Moreover, while laughing appears to have no evolutionary advantage, it is easily explained as a gift of God to raise our spirits.

Source: To save unneeded and unnecessary "Search Time" just consider "www.creationmoments.com" :thumbs:

 

Ecclesiastes 7:2-6 (NLT96) Emphasis Mine

It is better to spend your time at funerals than at festivals. For you are going to die,and you should think about it while there is still time.
Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us.
A wise person thinks much about death, while the fool thinks only about having a good time now.
It is better to be criticised by a wise person than to be praised by a fool! Indeed,a fool's laughter is quickly gone, like thorns crackling in a fire. This also is meaningless.

 

It is better to spend your time at funerals than at festivals. For you are going to die,and you should think about it while there is still time.
Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us.
A wise person thinks much about death, while the fool thinks only about having a good time now.
It is better to be criticised by a wise person than to be praised by a fool! Indeed,a fool's laughter is quickly gone, like thorns crackling in a fire. This also is meaningless.

...oh wow, Rippon! Okay, that does it! No more laughter for me! Gonna spend the rest of my days pondering my death and dodging fools.

I wonder if the Lord is aware that His Words in Proverbs 17:22 are in conflict with Ecclesiastes 7:2-6? Boy, isn't that a bummer?

Okay, go ahead..., ask me if I'm being sarcastic? Go ahead. Ask.

Yep, for sure, I don't fit the mold. Well, let me work on that a bit.

 

context, context, context!!!

As for me, I frequently, after a good belly laugh, just thank God for HUMOR.
My wife & kids all think that I'll probably - literally - die laughing by bursting a vein they say shows up on my hairless (mostly) head when I'm carried away by some hilarity; many times on myself.:tongue3:

 

context, context, context!!!

Thank you Just....,

Here I was preparing how to tell my four year great-grand-daughter that she wouldn't be able to watch cartoons on TV and rather, begin to focus on her death. Wow!!!

Pheeeew, glad you cleaned that up.

Course, I've always been told that since I came to know the Lord..., I could trust in His promises. Such as, once saved..., always saved..., and my future home was secured.

Course, I do agree that for those who have never come to the saving knowledge of Salvation through Jesus should in fact be the ones to ponder funeral services.

I still can't seem to grasp this idea that being a Christian should be a burden. Someone help me out here.

 

A few more good ones:
This one you can replace "Saddam Hussein", with your favorite dictator

Saddam Hussein was sitting in his office wondering whom to invade next when his telephone rang.

"Hallo! Mr. Hussein," a heavily accented voice said. "This is Paddy up in County Cavern, Ireland. I am ringing to inform you that we are officially declaring war on you!"

"Well, Paddy," Saddam replied, "this is indeed important news! Tell me, how big is your army?"

"At this moment in time," said Paddy after a moment's calculation, "there is myself, my cousin Sean, my next door neighbor Gerry, and the entire dominoes team from the pub-that makes eight!"

Saddam sighed. "I must tell you Paddy that I have one million men in my army waiting to move on my command."


"Begorra!" said Paddy, "I'll have to ring you back!" Sure enough, the next day Paddy rang back. "Right Mr.Hussein, the war is still on! We have managed to acquire some equipment!"

"And what equipment would that be, Paddy?" Saddam asked.

"Well, we have two International Harvester combines, a bulldozer, and Murphy's tractor from the farm."

Once more Saddam sighed. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 16 thousand tanks, 14 thousand armored personnel carriers, and my army has increased to one and a half million since we last spoke."

"Really?" said Paddy "I'll have to ring you back!" Sure enough, Paddy rang again the next day. "Right, Mr. Hussein, the war is still on! We have managed to get ourselves airborne! We've modified Ted's ultralight with a couple of rifles in the cockpit and the bridge team has joined us as well!"

Saddam was silent for a minute, then sighed. "I must tell you Paddy, that I have a thousand bombers, 500 MiG 19 attack planes, my military complex is surrounded by laser-guided surface-to-air missile sites, and since we last spoke, my army has increased to two million."

"Faith and Begorra!" said Paddy, "I'll have to ring you back." Sure enough, Paddy called again the next day. "Right Mr. Hussein, I am sorry to tell you that we have had to call off the war."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Saddam. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

"Well," said Paddy, "we've all had a chat, and there's no way we can feed two million prisoners."




Green Garden Grass snakes can be dangerous, Yes, grass snakes, not rattlesnakes. A couple in Sweetwater, Texas had a lot of potted plants, and during a recent cold spell, the wife was bringing a lot of them indoors to protect them from a possible freeze. It turned out that a little green garden grass snake was hidden in one of the plants and when it had warmed up, it slithered out and the wife saw it go under the sofa. She let out a very loud scream. The husband who was taking a shower ran out into the living room naked to see what the problem was. She told him there was a snake under the sofa. He got down on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it.

About that time the family dog came and cold-nosed him on the leg. He thought the snake had bitten him and he fainted. His wife thought he had a heart attack, so she called an ambulance. The attendants rushed in and loaded him on the stretcher and started carrying him out.

Just then the snake came out from under the sofa and the Emergency Medical Technician saw it and dropped his end of the stretcher. That's when the man broke his leg and why he is in the hospital. The wife still had the problem of the snake in the house, so she called on a neighbor man. He volunteered to capture the snake. He armed himself with a rolled-up newspaper and began poking under the couch.

Soon he decided it was gone and told the woman, who sat down on the sofa in relief. But in relaxing, her hand dangled in between the cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling around. She screamed and fainted, the snake rushed back under the sofa, and the neighbor man, seeing her laying there passed out tried to use CPR to revive her. The neighbor's wife, who had just returned from shopping at the grocery store, saw her husband's mouth on the woman's mouth and slammed her husband in the back of the head with a bag of canned goods, knocking him out and cutting his scalp to a point where it needed stitches. An ambulance was again called and it was determined that the injury required hospitalization.

The noise woke the woman from her dead faint and she saw her neighbor lying on the floor with his wife bending over him, so she assumed he had been bitten by the snake. She went to the kitchen, brought back a small bottle of whiskey, and began pouring it down the man's throat.

By now the police had arrived. They saw the unconscious man, smelled the whiskey, and assumed that a drunken fight had occurred. They were about to arrest them all, when the two women tried to explain how it all happened over a little green snake. They called an ambulance, which took away the neighbor and his sobbing wife. Just then the little snake crawled out from under the couch. One of the policemen drew his gun and fired at it. He missed the snake and hit the leg of the end table that was on one side of the sofa. The table fell over and the lamp on it shattered and as the bulb broke, it started a fire in the drapes. The other policeman tried to beat out the flames and fell through the window into the yard on top of the family dog, who startled, jumped up and raced out into the street, where an oncoming car swerved to avoid it and smashed into the parked police car and set it on fire. Meanwhile the burning drapes had spread to the walls and the entire house was blazing.

Neighbors had called the fire department and the arriving fire-truck had started raising his ladder as they were halfway down the street. The rising ladder tore out the overhead wires and put out the electricity and disconnected the telephones in a ten-square city block area.

Time passed ----------------- Both men were discharged from the hospital, the house was rebuilt, the police acquired a new car, and all was right with their world ------- About a year later they were watching TV and the weatherman announced a cold snap for that night. The husband asked his wife if she thought they should bring in their plants for the night. She shot him.





NOT knowing the nuances of a language can really mess you up!!


One day, an immigrant from Poland entered a New York City Police Precinct to report that his American wife was planning to kill him. The police officer on duty was intrigued by this, and he asked, "How sure are ya that she is gonna kill ya? Did she threaten to kill ya?"

"No," replied the nervous immigrant.

"Did ya hear her tell someone else that she's gonna kill ya?"

"No."

"Did someone tell ya that your wife is gonna kill ya?"

"No."

"Then why in God's name did ya think she's gonna kill ya?" asked the exasperated police officer.

"Because I found a bottle on dresser and I think she's gonna poison me!"

He handed the police officer the suspect bottle. The police officer took one look at the label on the bottle and started to laugh out loud.

The immigrant became indignant and said,
"What's so funny? Can't you see the label on bottle says 'Polish Remover'?"

 

Back before he was caught, Osama was riding through the desert on a camel with 150 bodyguards. As they passed a large rock, they saw a sapper leaning up against it whittling. Osama decided he'd teach this sapper a lesson.

He sent 10 men after the sapper. The sapper retreated behind the rock, and and the bodyguards followed. Osama heard the sounds of a fight and laughed smugly at the apparent beating.

When all was quiet, the sapper came back around the rock, and calmly resumed his whittling. Osama was mad. He sent 25 men after the sapper, who again retreated behind the rock. The 25 Taliban followed.

After another scuffle, the sapper reappeared and resumed whittling.

Osama was furious. He sent 50 men after the sapper, who retreated behind the rock yet again, and the 50 men followed.

During the sounds of the scuffle, one lone taliban dragged himself from behind the rock, pulled himself to Osama's camel, and said, "Oh Hadji, exalted one! I implore you to not send any more men! It's a trap! There are two of them!"