The essential difference between the religions

As you may know, a religion has three main purposes:

1) to alleviate the debilitating fear of death which almost every human being has and which almost certainly is genetically inherited because evolutionally beneficial;

2) to explain natural phenomena for which the humans have not yet found a satisfactory explanation;

3) to give the leaders of the society an ideology with which to justify their demand that the rest of the population submit to their rule.

I shall not elaborate on that here. I only mentioned it to remind you that when reading religious writings, it is advisable not to forget that that particular religion was created by somebody and directed at somebody. Maybe a religion was not actually created with a target audience in mind, but it survived to today because it found a target audience for which it was very suitable.

Recently, while I was reading some religious texts, it occurred to me that one can observe a rather striking difference in a way how three major religions (Christianity, Islam and Buddhism; I'll leave our Judaism and Hinduism because I know very little about them) approach the third main purpose of religion – keeping the common people in line, that is encouraging the individual to do whatever the society and its rulers happen to require from them at the moment.

If we simplify, not only their actual preachings, but more importantly their way of preaching, to its essence, we will come to the conclusion that:

1. Christianty is a religion of fear.

It says that if you don't do what the nobles and priests tell you, you will suffer unspeakable torment in Hell after the death of your physical body.

2. Islam is a religion of gain.

It's not hard to notice how Moslems are motivated much less by the fear of hell than tempted by the delights supposedly waiting for them in paradise. Houris and all that. Christianity has nothing of the kind. Paradise is just a moderately nice place to be. You want to get there not for its own sake, but in order to avoid Hell.

More than that, Islam tempts believers with all-but-heavenly pleasures already in this world. While the Quran prescribes certain rules for intergender relations, it states specifically that with women looted in war, one can do as one pleases. There is nothing like that in Christianity. Quite on the contrary – pleasure as such is a sin. Fight against pleasure is what Christianity is all about – brought to the extreme by Calvinism, but unmistakably present since the very beginnings of Christianity. It is no exaggeration to say that the association of sex drive with guilt is the most important principle that lies on the basis of the whole Christian faith. (I'm not the first one to point that out, of course.)

3. Buddhism is a religion of reason.

Other than Christianity and Islam, Buddhism doesn't urge people to fight for or against something. Rather than insisting on subservience, it persuades you to stop trying to achieve anything. By the means of psychological facts and logical arguments, as well as occasional skilful truth-twisting, it suggests that meekly submitting to whatever life throws at you is in your best interest. Pleasure is neither a sin (as in Christianity) nor a reward of doing the right things (as in Islam), it is unachievable. Whatever you do to be happy, Buddhism consistently and vehemently insists, will bring you a lot more suffering than pleasure. It is therefore reasonable to give up striving for happiness. The (relatively) best you can ever hope for is to minimize your suffering, which you can achieve by making yourself numb to everything and, ideally, giving up your very identity. Buddhism can be summed up in one sentence – "Happiness is impossible, but if you don't care about anything, then at least you don't suffer." But the main point I wanted to stress here is that Buddhism doesn't say what you have to do – it tells you that following their teachings is in your best interest. Christianity and Islam say that you must work on your master's field and pay your taxes to the king in order to save your soul from hell. Buddhism says you can't do anything about it, so it's in your best interest to put up with it and learn not to care. Christianity says self-denial is your obligation. Buddhism says it's the lesser evil.

I think there can be little doubt that the original target audiences of those three religions – Europeans, Semites and East Asians – were very different in their prevailing mentality. I dare say, the difference between their target audiences can be observed even today. Admittedly, it is only thanks to historical chance that Islam is very popular in Indonesia and Christianity in the Philippines. From the anthropological point of view, it could just as well be the other way around. But I don't think it's an accident that Christianity never seriously caught on in India, China and Japan, and neither did Buddhism outside of East Asia – and that Islam is far more popular among the blacks than among the whites.

Does it mean that the white people are very cowardly, the semites are very greedy and the orientals are very rational? I rather disagree with that. But understanding the fundamental differences of the three big religions is surely helpful for better understanding of the peoples among which they are popular.

What's with the men's long legs fetish?

There is one thing about men I've been thinking about a lot and just can't understand:

Why is it that men fancy long legs?

In works of fiction and non-fiction, I have over many years (as we all have) read countless praising descriptions of one or another woman's looks. Time and again, I have seen a writer admiringly state that the woman had long legs. Long legs are without doubt applauded far more often than, say, smooth skin or firm buttocks. And whenever a man describes a woman's legs, it's almost never about how straight or curved they are, how thick or thin they are, how firm or flabby they are, how hairy or hairless they are. The focus is always on their length, as if that was more important than anything else.

Now, it is perfectly understandable why a man would prefer large breasts over small breasts, or small breasts over large breasts, or a slim figure, or a stout one, and so on. I'm sure most of us have a personal preference concerning women's skin color, hairstyle or pubic hair. Surely there are very few men in the world who don't dislike cellulitis. But, for the life of me, I can't see how the LENGTH of a woman's legs should influence her attractiveness one way or another. I mean, it makes perfect sense when a man doesn't like legs that are too thick, or too muscular, or too bony, or too scarred, or whatever. But what in Heaven's name has the legs' length got to do with anything?

I can understand pretty much everything else about men (and women, for that matter). That's why it's driving me crazy that I can't figure that long legs thing out. Every male writer seems to think that every male reader understand why long legs are better than short legs. This is a clear indication that the long legs fetish must be very widespread. The impossibility of finding even the slightest attempt of explanation to this phenomenon is therefore perplexing beyond words.

Some time ago I found a forum which seemed suitable for openly talking about such topics, and posted this question. In no time my thread was hijacked by complete and utter morons who began discussing the question whether or not the beauty standards "imposed by the society" were justified or not, posting photos of ancient statues to illustrate their points which I must say escaped me completely. In hindsight I realise I should have known that the overwhelming majority of men don't have the slightest capability of, nor interest in, putting themselves into another person's head. For them the question "what goes on in the mind of a man who likes long legs" could just as well have been written in Swahili. Such men are only able to discuss things like how much is the type of women generally held beatiful in this day and age different from that in Ancient Greece, Araby or China. What I need is something completely different. I want to be able to imagine what a man feels when he looks at a woman and finds her attractive because her legs are long.

I'm at the end of my wits. I no longer know whom to ask. So, on a remote chance that someone who reads this is able to help me even a tiny bit closer to the answer, I am posting this article.

Please resists your urge to tell me platitudes such as:

"I don't know why, I just find long legs sexy."

"Not all men like long legs."

"Men like many things, not just long legs."

I am asking you to share your insights as to what goes on in the heads of the men who are aroused by long legs.

To bring you an analogy, there are several possible reasons why some men find large breasts arousing and some men find small breasts arousing.

When a man prefers large breasts over small breasts, the most likely explanation is that we have genetically inherited the preference for large breasts because large breasts can produce more milk and thus increase the chances for our children's survival – meaning, men whose genes program them to get aroused by large breasts have, on average, slightly more surviving offspring, and thus the large-breasts-are-arousing gene spreads better. This is not the only possible reason, though. For some men large breasts might be subconsciously associated with the safety and closeness provided to us by our mother.

When a man prefers small breasts over large breasts, it may be because he generally preferes petite women – maybe because he is relatively short and weak and therefore doesn't feel confident around larger women. Or maybe he is repulsed by the whorish behaviour of women in our time, and petiteness associates in his subconscious mind with youth and youth associates with innocence. Or maybe he likes boyish-looking women because he subconsciously wishes to actually fuck a young man.

This is what I'm looking for here: an understanding of what inner motives might move a man to adore long legs or, for that matter, attribute any importance whatsoever to the length of a woman's legs.

I pray to God whom I don't believe that at least some of you will be intelligent enough to understand my question, because I can't explain it any more clearly than this.

The real reason why we celebrate birthdays

Have you ever stopped to wonder why we have this traditon that everyone is expected to throw a party at their birthday, inviting guests who bring them presents and congratulate them on having grown older by one year as if it was something to be glad of?

I had actual birthday parties with guests at home until I was 16. After that, I had birthday parties only (with one exception) on those years when I was either living with a girlfriend, or belonged to a group of friends who celebrated each other's birthdays even when the hero of the day was unable to attend – it was just an excuse to party. I enjoyed getting together with people and being merry all right – but in my adult age I found no pleasure in having aged by yet another year. That, and the time when I was getting really cool presents ended sometime around 13.  ;-)

Why do most people enjoy birthdays, or at least act as if they did? I eventually found out the (most likely) reason, but in order to make the reasoning easier for you to follow, I'll start with a few brief stories from my life. For your convenience and their privacy, I have given the participants made-up English names.

I remeber that on his 50th birthday, my father said – after the guests' congratulatory speeches – something to the effect of "dear friends, you said many kind words to me, but the sad truth is that I have grown old". He threw an awesome party all the same.

I remember a later occasion when a former long-time female colleague of mine reached 30 and I decided to call and congratulate her, but I wasn't quite sure if I had written down her birthday correctly, so I called and asked her if this was her 30th birthday. To my surprise, she reacted really offended, and I completed the call quickly and didn't congratulate her after all. It was her 30th birthday all right, I gathered as much, but I had been too clumsy to realise that I wasn't supposed to remind her of her age. Not when a woman gets 30.

Anyway, over the years I found myself wondering a lot why do we celebrate the anniversary of our birth instead of some great events in our life? Obviously your birth hasn't got the slightest to do with you. It's solely the achievement of your parents. Now, a reason to have a party and scream with joy would be, for instance, the anniversary of my very first sex act. Such an event would be a thousand times more a reason to celebrate than something as random (from my point of view) as my birth.

When I shared that thought with a friend of my girlfriend's in one of our frank discussions, she said she couldn't imagine herself visiting a lady friend with a bouquet of flowers and congratulating her on losing her cherry. Figures. Of course women wouldn't be exactly eager to openly celebrate something sexual. But still, there are personal achievements that are perfectly decent. Why don't we celebrate the anniversaries of those?

Now comes the story that helped me put it all together. My uncle Edward (more precisely, the husband of my aunt Julia) had died. He had been among the people I have most admired during my life. I knew he had troubled relationships with his wife and apparently with his younger son Tony, and I had heard about bad things he had done in the past, but that was past. To me he was totally one of the greatest men I've ever had the honour to interact with. I was very happy when I was able to do him a favour or two in the final years in his life. Also it filled my heart with the deepest gratitude when I was allowed to be one of the coffin carriers at his funeral.

My elder cousin Paul's wife Kate hated Uncle Edward. I remember a conversation I had with her where she happened to say casually "Well, you obviously didn't come to Edward's funeral to pay him your respects, did you? You came here to help Julia and Tony and the others to come to terms with his death."

I was dumbfound that she would say such a thing. I had come to the funeral precisely to pay my respects to Uncle Edward. As to Julia and Tony, they were grown-ups, they knew people died. It had never crossed my mind to try and play psychotherapist to them. Apart from which, it had always been obvious they didn't exactly love Uncle Edward. They had more like put up with the inevitability of his presence in their home. Trying to console them was beyond the last thing on my mind.

However, that expression of Kate's, "help them come to terms with", kept echoing somewhere on the edge of my counciousness, and one day it suddenly dawned to me how it was so relevant to an event of a completely different kind. You guessed it – the birthday!!

We visit people on their birthdays and congratulate them and give them presents and be merry with them in order to not give them time to feel the anguish. Birthday celebrations are meant to help people to come to terms with the horrible truth that they are getting older.

This is how it works:

When we are very young, our parents often celebrate not only the passing of years, but even the passing of 1, 2, 3 etc. months from our birth. They have every reason to toast their immense achievement – the mother has actually raised a baby inside her body, and, well, the father has also helped a little bit. To have produced an actual living, sentient being is a miracle, really, when you stop to think about it. So of course the parents want to shout their joy from the rooftops.

When the child gets a little older, he becomes actually aware of his having a birthday once a year. He notices how his parents are so happy on that day and everybody are so kind to him and bring him presents and he gets to eat birthday cake. That pleasant experience is repeated every year and thus getting habitual. Apart from which, a child wants to grow up as quickly as possible, so getting older is really a happy occasion to him. By the time it no longer is, one has this program firmly fixed in one's neuronal connections that birthdays are a cause for merriment, and even when we have some doubts about it, we simply have to organise birthday parties because it's expected of us, it's what people do.

It would take great courage to tell your family and friends: "Look, I have decided to stop celebrating my birthdays, because there is no pleasure in getting older. Instead, I will invite you all over on the anniversary of my graduation from the university, because it is an achievement of my own of which I am really proud." Obviously, people would consider that a little weird. And it is very likely that many people would disregard your decision and continue to congratulate on your birthday – simply because they are celebrating birthdays of their own, and they need their friends to come over and bring them flowers and presents and thereby expel the grief of having gotten older from their minds.

By the way, this theory explains plausibly why women are so crazy about birthdays – to them getting older is a real devastation, so they need this "helping to cope" thing a lot more than we men do.