One of the victims of last week's Paris massacre by ISIL terrorists was the wife of 12 years of a man with a very young child. I was impressed by what he said after the loss of his wife.

He lauded his wife's beauty even in death and then said with reference to ISIL, "I will not let your hate overcome me". Now those were courageous words indeed. In a situation where people automatically jump to emotional conclusions, it is often easy to type-cast persons who may not be similar to one in particular ways and turns one's retributive hate towards them. One friend of mine told me that these Paris attacks prove that democracy is only possible where there is Christianity! A very sweeping statement borne of emotions, I believe, not reason, when one remembers that democracy preceded Christianity by hundreds of years in ancient Greece and that the first 1800 years of Christianity were quite autocratic and anything but democratic. I do believe however that democracy is augmented by some values of Christianity such as the idea of freedom, mutual respect and tolerance. These values however are based on natural law and they are therefore available to all men and women of goodwill irrespective of religion. However, there are issues of local culture and lack of education and ignorance that may get in the way of subscribing to these values.

To lump all of Islam with the attacks on Paris is misguided, short-sighted and far from the truth. France has the biggest Muslim population in Europe and many of the victims of the attacks were in fact Muslim. One particular Jewish owner of a café described how his Muslim wife was shot dead in front of him for no reason at all. I believe it is simplistic but satisfying our own primordial fears or even our own latent extremist urges to simply lump all Muslims with this aberrant type of fundamentalist extremism. It is the extremism after all that is the culprit here. The extremism well referred by Aristotle in his Theory of the Mean, which pointed out the lack of temperance in seeking out our approach to virtuous behaviour. Virtue is our habitual choice for doing good. Without virtue there cannot be good. People who habitually choose extreme roads when a more virtuous route is available are the opposite of virtuous. They are vicious and extreme persons, and it is these persons and their organisations that we should turn our attentions and concerns to, not to innocent individuals of whatever belief. Virtue abhors the extremes and Aristotle rightly says that it resides in those persons looking for the reasonable middle of the road approach. Extremists can be Muslims. They may also be Christians, Jews, atheists and whatever other belief system one espouses.

One need only look at the situation in the ex-Yugoslav states to understand what people can be capable of. Some Muslims there were extreme, but the most extreme behaviour were carried out by Christians. Hitler and his henchmen were extremists and Christian. Many of the doctors at Auschwitz were extremists and Christian! The bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma a couple of years back was carried out by extreme Christian! The reality is that it is the lack of the cardinal and other virtues that leads to extremist behaviour and very often the result of personal ignorance. Fortitude, justice, temperance and above all prudence are all amenable to all people endowed with human reason and therefore part of natural law. It is this human reason which pervades all human beings created in the image of God who is pure logos and reason himself, which allows us to avoid extremism and be prudent and apply practical reason in our approach to life and its problems. Islam, like Christianity and the Jewish religion is the belief in the person of God the Father. Muslims like Jews do not believe in the Trinity, that is God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, but they, like us, are sons of Abraham and therefore monotheistic in religious outlook. There is much more that unites us than that which separates us. Effectively, the value system revealed to Abraham and ultimately Moses and practised by all Jews, Christians and Muslims, the Ten Commandments, are a value system based on natural law! Who are we to usurp the plan of God who in his infinite wisdom uses all monotheistic religions including Islam, to drive out the platitudes of paganism? Who are we to fathom God's plans for the ultimate salvation of all humanity? There may be something greater than we can ever comprehend going on in God's mind being that of a simple being. We are only asked to respond with the very tools at our disposal. These tools that are called human solidarity and love, tools available to all Christians, Jews, Muslims and all of humanity.

Let us decry this extremist behaviour. Let us do everything in our power to root out the evil they represent. Let us show solidarity with our French compatriots and the victims in their shock and sorrow. Let us not however discriminate and crucify innocent victims whose way of life may be different to our cultural mainstream. Like the husband of the murdered wife in Paris, I will not be a victim of what the terrorists ultimately want. I will not let their hate get at me!