Debate: Would you be okay with a Muslim President?
Side: Not at all

I have not heard of that statistic before; can you recall a source at all?http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340599/WikiLeaks-1-3-British-Muslim-students-killing-Islam-40-want-Sharia-law.htmlThere was a similar study I remember seeing done in the US, but I can't seem to dig it up. And this is referring to the percentage of Sharia advocates, in this case, among a student population in Britain. If nations that were predominantly Islamic had the benefit of a more stable political development with less exterior intervention, then I think we would see a very different manifestation of the faith.Yes. I very much agree. And perhaps if the serial killer and mass rapist hadn't been himself beaten and raped as a child, he wouldn't be a serial killer and mass rapist, but you can't expect this to excuse his crimes, can you? That proclivity aside though it seems that radicalism is not necessarily the norm, and if that is the case then it strikes me as odd to assume radicalism before moderation in a Muslim candidate. The non-desirous trait should be extremism rather than being Muslim, and to conflate the two does seem prejudicial to me.Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think this is ever a point I made. I know I interjected into a debate you were having specifically on this issue, but I tried to be careful to not make the point that I wouldn't vote for or support a Muslim candidates right to run for president. Actually I wouldn't vote for one, but that's because of my views on voting, and has nothing to do with religion. http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/ Does_my_vote_matter Firstly, I think that not all Islamic nations are quite as extreme and pro-Sharia across the board as you portray them to be, although Middle-Eastern affairs are not exactly my strongest suit.You're part right. A lot of the countries I listed don't fully practice Sharia Law, but all of them at least incorporate elements of it into the governing process, and in my humble opinion any Sharia is too much Sharia.  Perhaps moderation is privilege not so much of the civilized but of the powerful, and extremism is the consequence of subordination and exploitation.An interesting and perhaps true observation, but again, what does this change? And the state of the Islamic world today, one of the cradles of civilization, was not entirely decided by the actions of a country that only started meddling in foreign affairs in the 1900s. Exploitation played its part in shaping the area, no doubt, but that only really picked up around the Cold War, no? Western Christian nations were some 200 odd years past their brutal religious past at this point. Why were Muslim nations so far behind as to be susceptible to such exploitation? ... is what it is and should be evaluated as a concern based upon that reality alone. Correct me if I am wrong.More or less. I find debating about the origins of the issue mildly interesting, but it's not a pressing problem in the world today. There's something to be said for learning from the mistakes of history, I think, but that doesn't solve or even address what I consider to be the issue at hand. however it still does not make sense to me to assume that implementing Sharia law would be on the agenda of a political candidate simply because they are Muslim.I don't assume that and if I implied that it wasn't my intent. What I did mean to imply is that is should certainly be a consideration, that we should make sure that it is not on the agenda of any Muslim candidate lucky enough to make the ballot, because as I said before the wages are our freedom and safety. Yes, well argued and I rather see your point so consider that particular point conceded. I think it is fair to say you have persuaded me over to viewing an Islamic state as more of a threat to freedom than a Christian one.I was a militant atheist who spent a lot of his time attacking Christianity, partly for the barbarism in its religious text, and then when I started studying the influence of religion worldwide and looked at the Islamic world, I thought, "Holy shit, it's like all the barbarism from Christian texts is still going on." What I mean to say is that it's easy to criticize Islam in this context because Islam is an easy target. I think you're points about why the Islamic world is this way contain some truth are are defiantly worth consideration, but still, a rotten apple is a rotten apple; no matter how it got rotten, I'm not eating it. To reiterate my sticking point however, why does this mean one would not support a presidential candidate solely because of their religion absent any knowledge of how they view their faith and its relation to the law?I don't think it should mean that, and looking back over my posts (as this is a reoccurring issue) I never said that. ARMYANT, the guy you were debating with when I interjected, said that, but I didn't. I did state as a fact that it doesn't take a Muslim president or prime minister to have Sharia Law implemented in a country. And I asked what damage a radical Islamist president or prime minister could do. And I said we should be on the lookout for creeping Sharia. But none of these things were meant to state or imply that I wouldn't vote for a Muslim on the basis that he is a Muslim and Sharia Law is an aspect of Muslim society. That would be a prejudice and intolerant statement based on a very weak association.