I was under the impression that Shinra were being evil using the precious, one-of-a-kind (or four rather) Huge Materia to destroy Meteor whereas we're all supposed to assume that the best course of action is to true a handful of terrorists with the fate of world. Even though they don't even set out to do anything about Meteor. They just go to beat up Sephiroth whilst the Planet gets bailed out by the Lifestream.