While most believers have yet to prove the existence of the god they worship under, they keep giving their god a bad name.

Another terrorist-related attack occurred in France last January 7, 2015 after a cartoon published in the French magazine “Charlie Hebdo” offended some Muslim extremists. As seen on the retrieved CCTV footage, a car driven by the assailants arrived and started shooting people in the magazine’s office. 12 people including 4 cartoonists were reported dead while 11 were left wounded. And this is all because of a satirical cartoon.

It wasn’t the first time that it happened as another reported incident was traced way back in 2011. The cartoonists were defiant claiming that they would rather die standing than on their knees. Fighting words indeed, much like the words that the assailants screamed after going out of the building “Allahu akbar” (God is great).

There goes the irony in this terrorist attack. If their god is indeed great, why do they have to do the killing themselves? Can’t the god they believe in do the killing instead since he was the one that got offended? This is where you realize a harsh reality in the way some religious folks handle their faith. They get offended more than god itself just in case it exists. It’s like a fanclub that cries louder whenever it’s their idol getting attacked. If the idol gets pricked, the idol’s fanbase bleed.

The worst thing that religion ever did to human beings is divide them. It has become a tribal thing. Or a clique thing where everyone is welcome but only those who are welcome get fair treatment. Only those with positive things to say about the movement or the belief get fair treatment. Everyone else that doesn’t belong get excluded. In worse cases, they get ridiculed, persecuted and publicly vilified.

Now when it’s some satirists’ turn to mock or ridicule a certain belief, some of these believers bleed like hell. They get butthurt. Instead of taking a joke or explaining how some jokes can just get so far, they retaliate in violence. What kind of faith teaches its followers to retaliate violently before understand what the joke really is about? Or was it really a joke?

Satire is one of the most underrated methods of shaking things up in society. And this is because people often get offended first before they understand. Almost everyone’s concern today is being politically correct knowing how the rest of the populace easily gets butthurt. Whatever happened to teaching your kids how to face a world that is not fair? Whatever happened to the freedom to question beliefs? If you believe your faith is devoid of bullshit, why retaliate with guns?

This is why it is heart-warming to see a sea of support for the slain cartoonists. Maybe they did not initially get the joke. Maybe some of them have difficulty identifying satirical journalism and I can’t blame them. Some news items look funnier than what’s found on Onion.com only to discover later on that it’s real news. But the crowd started raising placards with the words “Je suis Charlie” implying that everyone felt the impact of the attacks. If believers bleed whenever their faith is put to question, everyone else bleeds too when freedom of expression is hurt.

France is one of the first secular countries in Europe. Publications like Charlie Hebdo will still persist to keep freedom of expression alive. They would continue whatever is left behind by the slain satirical cartoonists especially now that individuals that labeled themselves as “secular Muslims” are inexplicably silent on the matter. Can’t they be human beings first and religious individuals later? Better yet, can’t they just get rid of religion altogether if it only meant widening the divide between human beings?

Religion is becoming less and less a tool for morality and becoming more and more of a tool of oppression. Some deaths need to mean something. Hopefully this would be the ultimate dealbreaker for most religions like Islam.

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