Is this a discussion forum or not? It happens here that some topics are banned from discussion, as if there are taboos that must be respected and held in place. What happens is that when someone touches upon such a topic, or looks into a particular aspect of it, some posters will claim that it is a breach of their personal space and freedom. (And probably accuse the other poster of trolling or some such.) To be sure, I am talking about topics with a long history of philosophical, political and religious discourse (like death and dying, sexuality, the meaning of life), so talking about them in what is supposedly a discussion forum, really is not a violation of a person's privacy. So: Is this a discussion forum or not?
Red Herring. It becomes an issue when you try to use those topics to avoid having to support your claims. It becomes an issue when you claim that your perceptions of the "meaning of life" must be adhered to by others lest you question their sanity.
Discussion of almost any topic is more than welcome. The problem becomes when such a topic (as, say, racism or ethnocentrism) devolves into a simple flame-war... which, with the aforementioned topics, tends to be almost always and quite quickly, then becomes an issue that must be handled. Think of it sort of like walking up to a person with Jewish parents/grandparents and blaming them for World War 2 - it's sort of like a slap to the face, no matter how you look at it or what your reasoning is, and there's simply no need for it.
