Religion doesn't kill people. People kill people.

Another day, another atrocity and we have to ask ourselves is there no end in sight to this taking of lives?

Do we really have to exist in a world where violent death and destruction is part of who we are?

If we honestly look to answer this, and base a response on factual evidence, then it would have to be said that currently there literally is no end in sight and in many ways violence is our default setting.

We appear to revel in wading through life as if it is a river of blood to be traversed.

It’s actually disgustingly depressing that we are capable of so much as a species, and yet addressing this fundamental flaw in our makeup is beyond us.

Give the human race a task and with time and effort we can achieve what was originally considered the impossible, except for excising violence from the world.

And if we are brutally honest with ourselves then the reason for this is because we probably don't really want to.

Violence is too useful a control tool to set aside for the greater good.

Can any of us realistically imagine a time within our own lifespan when the world will step away from meting out death as a control measure.

Because when you strip away all the religious arguments that are floating about, remove the talk of false flag conspiracies, and dig deeper, then at the root of the deaths in Paris is simply that one group of people wanted to control the actions of another.

In this case one side doesn't want the other side drawing some cartoons so they decided death and destruction was how to achieve their aims.

When said out loud, and as basically as that, it sounds completely ridiculous, and that’s because it is.

And yet similar happens everywhere, and always has done.

The people in Paris with the guns in their hands are no different to the Israeli soldier opening fire on a Palestinian, or even to the Palestinian who has strapped a waistcoat of Semtex to himself.

They are no different to the soldier of any country who has their finger on a trigger right now, or the anti abortionist who is considering planting a bomb in a clinic.

In fact they are no different from the partner in a relationship who uses their fists to shape their relationship.

What they all have in common is that they are looking to impose a world they want onto everyone else.

Sometimes it isn't even their perfect world, but instead that of their glorious leaders, but it doesn't really matter as it still boils down to the same thing.

We can claim the deaths in Paris are a religious problem, and of course that is part of the issue, but in many ways the belief systems - regardless of what they may be - are just the wrapping paper that covers our inherent need to control.

Maybe one day we can all step forward away from all of this, but there's nothing out there just now to lead me to believe it.

Very sadly depressing on every level.

And seeing as everyone and their brother is sharing Voltaire quotes here is one that isn't the first to be uttered.

Fanaticism is a monster that pretends to be the child of religion.