Sounds like an Intelligent Design to me ...

"Imagine if the Ku Klux Klan or Aryan Nation obtained total control of Texas and had at its disposal all the oil revenues and used this money to establish a network of well-endowed schools and colleges all over Christendom peddling their particular brand of Christianity." I'd rather not, thank you. I'm still pondering George Bush's Intelligent Design "answer" to Darwinism (see the cited article in my Religious Police Update below), and that proposition strikes a little too close to the bone.

Nevertheless, the notion that terrorists are simply murderous perverts, as asserted in a provocative op/ed in the Sydney Morning Herald, from which the above quoted question was taken, does give flavour to the thought that haunts me, that big 'R' Religion has perverted the course of mankind more than any other factor. I commend the Comment more for its provocative thought than its judgment, and to whet your appetite, consider this excerpt:

"Just don't call this vast intelligence and propaganda operation the "war on terrorism", one of the most misbegotten concepts inflicted on the world by the US President, George Bush. What we have actually seen is a "War against the Man Who Humiliated My Father". Not exactly the same thing. The rhetoric of war is self-serving, misdirected cant. Using the terms "war" and "terrorism" gives the process of confronting perversion a gravitas and coherency that is romantic to those who envy the West."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/its-a-war-on-perverts-not-terrorists/2005/08/05/1123125902963.html

And while in the Herald, have a squidge of http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/good-bad-or-ugly-a-fair-trial-is-a-right/2005/08/05/1123125902970.html (Excerpt: "Milosevic will get a fair trial, Hicks will not.") and http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/freedom-of-speech-takes-a-fall/2005/08/05/1123125902973.html (Excerpt: "Intellectuals have generally been tolerant of extreme views on the left.")