In every age, taboo questions raise our blood pressure and threaten moral panic. But we cannot be afraid to answer them.

Do women, on average, have a different profile of aptitudes and emotions than men?

Were the events in the Bible fictitious -- not just the miracles, but those involving kings and empires?

Has the state of the environment improved in the last 50 years?

Do most victims of sexual abuse suffer no lifelong damage?

Did Native Americans engage in genocide and despoil the landscape?

Do men have an innate tendency to rape?

Did the crime rate go down in the 1990s because two decades earlier poor women aborted children who would have been prone to violence?

Are suicide terrorists well-educated, mentally healthy and morally driven?

Would the incidence of rape go down if prostitution were legalized?

Do African-American men have higher levels of testosterone, on average, than white men?

Is morality just a product of the evolution of our brains, with no inherent reality?

Would society be better off if heroin and cocaine were legalized?

Is homosexuality the symptom of an infectious disease?

Would it be consistent with our moral principles to give parents the option of euthanizing newborns with birth defects that would consign them to a life of pain and disability?

Do parents have any effect on the character or intelligence of their children?

Have religions killed a greater proportion of people than Nazism?

Would damage from terrorism be reduced if the police could torture suspects in special circumstances?

Would Africa have a better chance of rising out of poverty if it hosted more polluting industries or accepted Europe's nuclear waste?

Is the average intelligence of Western nations declining because duller people are having more children than smarter people?

Would unwanted children be better off if there were a market in adoption rights, with babies going to the highest bidder?

Would lives be saved if we instituted a free market in organs for transplantation?

Should people have the right to clone themselves, or enhance the genetic traits of their children?

Were the events in the Bible fictitious -- not just the miracles, but those involving kings and empires?
Allegory. I don't think there were 7 plagues in Egypt.

While we're on the subject of stuff that didn't happen, the other three out of the ten plagues probably didn't happen, either.

Would lives be saved if we instituted a free market in organs for transplantation?
Yes. But only for non-vital organs.

Those I believe ironically. 7 of them I don't.

Which "non-vital organ" sales would save lives?

This is...interesting. Which three do you believe, again?

I mean, if I were remotely religious as a christian, jew or muslim, I'd rather have to believe the final, tenth plague. The angel that killed the firstborn of Egypt but passed over the houses with lamb's blood sprinkled on the doorposts is a cornerstone for the Jewish and Christian (and therefore also, to a lesser extent, Islamic) faiths.

A single kidney, a single lung, part of a liver. Hearts? No. Both kidneys? No. Full liver? No.

Ahhh, so you're saying someone shouldn't be able to sell their heart (for example) if they're still alive?

Yes, you can't sell anything that would result in your own (or someone else's) death.

Of course, to play devil's advocate, nothing would stop unscrupulous individuals from killing someone, harvesting both of their kidneys, and selling them separately. A black market would arise involving the sale of stolen organs, either way.

However, overall, I still think it would save lives because more people would be inclined to donate organs if it meant money for themselves or those that survived after them. More donated organs = more people who get the transplants they need.

And, Taly, much like the legalization of drugs, sale of organs = more donated organs = more people who get the transplants they need = a less lucrative black market.

So then you just should not allow third party organ sales no?

I think 3rd party sales would be the only way this would ever work. Next of kin sells organs, etc. You're not going to find a huge market of people trying to sell their own organs.

Actually, I take that back. I'm an organ donor now. If I could sell my organs for a good bit of cash now, for delivery after my (natural, ****, stay away from me) death, I'd do it.