You go Pericles.

Bashir Goth has nailed it. And see how they squeal.

Best article I've read in a long time.

When do we get the sequel?

BOAZ_David, you'd be surprised to hear that I go out of my way to drive my son (19 yo)to various church services/meetings. He needs to go on his own journey in relation to religion as my parents allowed me.

I gather that the neo-cons in USA are Christian as are some Ministers in the Coalition Government and the Prime Minister; they supported pre-emptive strikes on Iraq. I cannot understand the Christian pragmatics involved with that. "Thou shalt not kill"??

Christian leaders of various persausions have been involved with sexually abusing young people , not all of these leaders belong to fundamental Christian groups.

I work with people displaying a humanist philosophy and find that these people treat others in what could be termed a "Christian" way.

Clearly there have been and are innunerable decent religious people. I have not found any role models in my own life.

I'm afraid I don't accept the Bible as being totally literal.

pericles,
The only straw man around here is yours.

I find it amazing that a person of your intellect can fail to understand that Bashir's 'common sense' is essentially being defined as anything that agrees with his worldview. Just because it agrees with your own worldview does not make it right or 'common sense'. I have showed quite clearly that the notion of common sense is virtually a useless one as it is only considered 'common sense' within a social/cultural worldview.

Your comments provided no content other than 'Grey is wrong and acting out of frustration'. The epitomie of poor logical discussion if every there was one.

Bashir is merely useless the oldest trick in the book. That of trying to redefine the language in a discussion in order to guarantee his view prevails. It is the same redefinition that has caused society to take on a irrational definition of 'tolerance'. The simple fact is that I am commenting on this redefinition and showing it to be a transparent rhetorical tactic. You have provided nothing to refute my point, only some irrational whining and congratulary back patting for bashir as you obviously are unable to grasp the simple concept that what is 'common sense' to one person is not necessarily common to others.

Grey you must be kidding- illogical thinkers like you need to take a long hard look at the way they construe meaningless theoretics- in your case the 'theory of common sense'. Common sense is not subjective! In this day and age 'common' means/ should mean 'global'.
Even Kofi Annan realises the importance of the international community reaching a consensus on the definition of 'terrorism'. Unfortunately for Kofi there are despots like Mugabe and Kim Jong Il that use nonsense arguments like yours to justify acts that by any definition, standard, or consensus should be considered at odds with humanity. The most ironic thing for the left, is that it is also because of such superfluous arguments that leaders like Bush get away with mocking international standards. The 'Hawks' certainly feel that in the present climate of 'no common sense' Bush has to be an international sheriff.
The sooner the international community can sit down and unanimously condemn Sudans' inaction in Darfur, Mugabes' violence in Zimbabwe, and Al Qaedas' horid strategies, the sooner common sense will mean someting again. Hopefully it will mean the same no matter where you are in the world

Grey, I find it amazing that a person of your intellect cannot spell bigoted or epitome, but I don't hold that against you.

Your attempts at textual deconstruction are doomed to fail, I'm afraid, for exactly the same reason that you misunderstand - deliberately or involuntarily I'll not speculate - Bashir's essentially simple and well-phrased point.

To conflate common sense - which to you cannot, by definition, exist - with what you loosely and conveniently label "worldview", is an act of verbal trickery. It is entirely possible for there to be two different "worldviews", and to be able to measure the acts of each, not only against each other, but against the yardstick of common sense.

You say "[c]ommon sense used to be that you could beat your own slaves. Common sense used to tell us that women are too emotional to vote" to illustrate that it can be neither common nor sense.

Yet if you compare the "worldview" of Christianity as enacted by its adherents over time, you will see that it also morphs and adapts to the world around it. Hippolytus in the third century described some extremely rigorous prerequisites to baptism, including "[a]sculptor or an artist must be warned not to make idolatrous pictures; he shall give it up or be rejected. If anyone is an actor or impersonator in the theater... [a] charioteer, an athlete, a gladiator, a trainer of gladiators, or one who fights wild beasts or hunts them or holds public office at the circus games [he] shall give it up or be rejected."

Compare that with the activities of Pope Alexander VI, who was gloriously described as "[c]orrupt, ambitious, worldly and pleasure-seeking, [he] would have been considered a rake even as a secular lord. As the leader and embodiment of western Christendom, he can only be called a scandal."

There are other examples, as you well know. Even a "text-based" "worldview" is liable to change over time

And as I said before, common sense may be used as a yardstick against each new implementation.

From David Wood,
Following the 9-11 attacks, a few enraged vandals smashed the windows of the Islamic Center near Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. When the pastor of a nearby church saw the students vandalizing the mosque, he called the police. Later in the day, police and school officials held a meeting to help ease some of the tension. After the meeting, an angry attendee caused a brief panic when he claimed that Islam is a religion of violence and bloodshed, and that the terrorists were only doing what they were commanded to do in the Qur'an. Several people (including myself) argued against him, confidently assuring the man that Islam is actually a religion of peace.

My beliefs about Islam have changed since then (mostly because I've studied Islam). Nevertheless, I recently realized why I had been so quick to defend the Muslim religion. Over the years, I've known several Muslims, and they have all been kind, peaceful individuals. Indeed, despite the popular portrait of Muslims burning flags and desecrating images of George Bush, the majority of Muslims are normal, faithful, peaceful people, going about their daily lives with no intention of blowing up buildings or of burning anyone's flag. Many in the West deny this, but they typically do so because they have never so much as talked to a Muslim.

The benevolent nature of these Muslims has a profound psychological effect on Westerners. It causes us to say, "Wait a minute. Islam can't be bad, because Muslims are such nice people. Thus, the terrorists who blow up buildings and subways must be extremists." Once we have convinced ourselves of this, we may even find ourselves defending Islam, as I once did. We know that people are angry at terrorists, and we know that some of these angry people may want to take out their anger on Muslims. So we end up defending Islam in order to protect our Muslim friends. While protecting people is certainly a noble goal, defending Islam is an entirely different story.