The hope of hell

I am an atheist. I have no religion. I have never found the need for it. There is no gaping hole in my existence which cries out to be filled by cant and superstition. Which makes me an equal-opportunities hate-figure for all the diverse creeds which provide the fertile soil in which take root the poisonous weeds of fundamentalism, fanaticism, and extremism.

I embrace no concept of heaven or hell. The world in which we live provides sufficient of both. But I hope the people who brought their mindless, murderous hatred to Paris believed in hell. I hope they believed, with the same demented fervour which drove them to commit these acts of heartless savagery, in the promise of unspeakable eternal torment.

I hope that, in the irreversible moment when they triggered the device by which they thought to escape to glory, the realisation came upon them that they were actually destined for the hell of their darkest fears.

I hope they knew the terror they sought to inflict on others.

Most of all, I want all those who would follow them to know that this is their fate. In the very moment of your death, the core of humanity that dwells within even the worst of us will rise up and inflict a retribution more terrible to you than any that might be imposed by a court of law; a vengeful enemy; or an offended deity.

In the moment of your death, you will know unfathomable despair and the endless hell you have created for yourself.

I am not a particularly good person. So I am able to take a bit of comfort from such thoughts without much guilt.