So how great is a god really that needs gunmen to do his work?

As always the following is my personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect that of my employer, line manager, family, friends, colleagues, computers or pot plants.

So about the terrorist attack on Charlie Hedbo...

I think the best way to react to somebody being murderously offended at the publication of satire is to repost some satire:

This is from Jesus and Mo, a wonderfully cheeky weekly comic strip, although admittedly the Mohammed character is said to be a body double.

To a certain degree I am trying to understand the logic of the murderers, although I am aware that one probably should not expect much logic. Reportedly, as they were massacring their victims, they shouted "we have avenged the prophet Mohammed" and "God is great". This raises the immediate question of why god, if he is indeed as great as they claim, cannot deal with blaspheming satirists himself, or in other words why exactly the murderers in cases like these think they need to commit such murders in god's name.

Surely if drawing a caricature of Mohammed is worthy of terrible punishment, god can just throw the artists into hell after they are dead? Or if he needs a speedier solution, maybe god can strike them with lightning? But of course that doesn't happen; why it is nearly as if god didn't actually exist! Perhaps the shouts of "god is great" primarily serve to reassure those who do the shouting, to drown out the little voice of doubt inside their heads; and to get rid of outside voices of doubt they use guns.