DON'T PRAY FOR PARIS

I'm not saying you shouldn't sympathize with the French for what happened in Paris on Friday. I'm just pointing out the irony of prayer.

Prayer suggests a target audience—a god of some sort that will process the request and act accordingly.

There's no evidence of such an entity.

The fact is—like the attacks on 9/11—the bloodletting in Paris occurred largely because god exists in the minds of men...and nowhere else.

The guys who perpetrated the attacks acted (and died) in sure and certain hope of a reward in Paradise. They died knowing they were doing god's will.

Praying to god now—for anything—suggests there's a possibility those men were right.

Positing a god who provides men with instructions for action requires you grapple with the possibility that god is not—as usually believed by everyone—on your side.

Otherwise, why did your god permit these attacks? Does god really hate the Parisians? Or does he love them, but wishes them to learn some sort of blood-based lesson?

France is one of the most secular nations of the Eurozone. Were these attacks god's way of criticizing that trend?

Draw your own conclusions.

People know what they know, and they can't be wrong—as far as they know. Every event proves something to somebody. You only have to open your eyes to be rewarded with confirmation that all your closely held notions are correct—whatever they happen to be.

This nifty delusion is what makes us human.

It also makes us the source of unbelievable horror and carnage.

ACTS OF TERROR

I don't think the attacks on Paris were acts of terror. I think they were low-level acts of war. Simple as that.

The Islamic State feels put upon and under attack (and they're right about that). As a result, they're fighting back. They're doing the best they can to right the wrongs they've suffered. As any self-respecting nation will.

If you don't recognize their legal right to do so, what do they care? Their rights don't come from your opinion, they come from god himself. Refute that!

You say they're delusional, but they know they're not. And everything they see proves them right.

Human beings, baby. Ya gotta love 'em.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

Individuals with guns and bombs can be killed or otherwise dealt with. Plots can be ferreted out and quashed, at least theoretically.

(The Paris attackers had good "operational security" which made a warning difficult. There are more and more encrypted messaging apps out there. Perhaps in the future only the most inept plotters will be found out ahead of time. All others will be free to spring their attacks from a place of ultimate secrecy.)

Bombing ISIS will galvanize other Muslims to fill the bloody boots of the dead. It's inevitable. But keep it up long enough, who knows: Maybe the flow of volunteers will slow and then stop.

Perhaps, with great effort and expense, ISIS can be wiped out. But other Islamic groups are likely to spring up to carry on the work of creating a global Caliphate. The numbers of the fallen will make this necessary.

Can there be any end to it?

One sure way of preventing future attacks is to eliminate them at the source: humans.

Kill all the humans and this will stop. Guaranteed.

(Unfortunately, it will be hard to know for certain, after we're gone. But since humans are both the perpetrators and the intended targets, I think we can be pretty sure of success. Of course, automated systems might survive us, raining fire upon the empty cities. Entertainment for rats and cockroaches.)

A less decisive action would be to go after the irritant that lies behind a large measure of turmoil on this planet. And I don't mean Islam. (Christianity is also drenched in the blood of its victims.)

I'm talking about the idea of god itself.

Let's be clear. I'm not saying the banishment of this ridiculous and primitive concept will eliminate all forms of conflict on the planet. Folks can still fight over the sovereignty of countries, over ethnic and racial concerns, even over vital resources like water, food, and fire wood.

But at least some of that stuff is demonstrably real.

Please note I'm not proposing an assault on god, merely on the belief in god. If there is such a thing as god—or indeed trillions of well-hidden deities—I presume him or her safe from our puny weapons.

The belief in god, however, is just a notion held by human beings. It's protected by the flimsiest of citadels—the human brain. If nonsense can be created, it can also be destroyed.

You may wonder, would the gods object?

Should one or more gods exist, I suppose they might fight back. Or perhaps they could offer a compromise to apparent extinction. Maybe they could agree to monitor the dodgier results stemming from a belief in god.

Unless, of course, they enjoy our pain.

In that case, all bets are off. The gauntlet is loosed, the real war begun in earnest.

But perhaps the gods will lean back and let it happen, let the belief in their existence be extinguished. After all, only a rather pathetic sort of god would ever admit a desire (let alone a need) to be worshipped. This craven behavior is beneath a deity, after all.

A well-informed and reasonably intelligent god should have no objection to a war mounted against belief in the Unknowable. Such a god might even enjoy the end of all those pesky prayers from the peanut gallery.

Maybe catch up on his reading or something.

On the other hand, maybe god is not only a needy jerk but a passive-aggressive personality. In that case there will be no obvious push-back when we try to eliminate a belief in him.

But after that, everybody goes to hell.

Fair enough. We can only hope hell will be bad. Should we fail in our mission to expunge the notion of a supernatural universe, we'll want to be able to detect the difference between hell and the sort of life cut out for us in a future dominated by runaway religious crap.