My late husband was French. We spent so many wonderful times in Paris, enjoying the restaurants, wandering the streets, sitting at sidewalk cafes drinking in the beauty of the city and the elegance of it’s people. My heart is broken when I see the devastation and horror that the city has endured.

Alice Vernoux

It was with great sorrow I have spent the last nights in front of the television watching news reports of the vicious attacks on the people of Paris. Only cowardly and psychotic people could plan such horrific acts. Could any religion or religious believers sanction this violence? If you believe in God, then you must believe God created all mankind. How then can you justify this kind of savage brutality against God’s creations? Time for the world to take serious notice and unite to put the rabid animals down.

The above was posted on facebook by me on the 14th November. A friend asked me if I saw the irony in my comment. Then I posted what follows as my explanation. To me, there was no irony, but I understood what he meant. Yes, I did understand the irony . . . if I was a religious person. But I’m not.

There is also hypocrisy and contradiction . . . (as well as irony). I am not a believer in an imaginary god. I believe instead in ethical realism.

What is real to me is that actions create reactions. The conquest of Spain by Islamic armies in 711 AD, and  their subsequent occupation, began the process of creating centuries of hate. The crusaders invading the territories of Islam starting in 1095 added fire to the flames. Result: hate on both sides, wounds that never healed.

Islam proclaims itself a religion of peace and yet has a number of  ‘sword verses’ within the Quran such as “ kill those who join other gods with God wherever ye shall find them; and seize them, besiege them, and lay wait for them with every kind of ambush”. But Islam is no worse than Christianity in the time of the Inquisition or any other time where non-Christians were slaughtered. After all, they learned from the Romans who killed the Christians, and so on throughout history.

As a student of history, I have come to believe that religion, at least an insistence on one god, has been the scourge of mankind for millennia. Belief in an invisible god allows man to interpret their god’s wishes in any way the interpreter chooses. It gives great leeway to vent all personal prejudices and hate.

I prefer the ethics of the pack. If a member of the pack is a danger to others within the pack, they are put down. The pack doesn’t need to know of they had an unpleasant childhood, if mummy didn’t love them, or loved them too much, or if they were on drugs, alcohol, or any way impaired. Millions of people each day have the same problems but have impulse control that stops them from performing unethical acts. The pack is clear: danger=death.

God’s messages as interpreted by psychotic humans through the centuries, have been used as permission let go of impulse control and express their hatred and anger as they wish. I say when people behave like rabid dogs dangerous to the pack they should be put down. It is an ethical argument to protect the many from the few. And it is very realistic in the conundrum of morality we are now faced with.

This is not the time for political correctness. It is the time for education, to understand the deep psychoses that underlie these age old problems and work from within to stop them and solve the reasons for their seductive growth.

I believe it is the problem of Islam, the pack from which these dogs come, to take care of the situation. Their pack, their job. If peaceful Islam wants the world to respect them, and not to lump them with the rabid, then it is time for their clergy, and their believers, to speak up and force their leaders to take action. The money to support terrorists comes from somewhere. If the funds are cut off, then organized attacks should fall off. This is a place to start. Countries who fund the rabid dogs should be shunned. Such action is not acceptable in world community.

Refugees pouring out of countries are not the answer to their misery. They just brings the misery with them to the places where they seek refuge. Staying home and solving the problem is the only answer.  Change from this disaster has to come from within, before it is too late for all of us.