Recent events have exposed America's, and the World's, unpreparedness for disastrous events .
As a consequence, second-guessing the Next Big Bang is a major preoccupation for certain cells of the government. The next big thing could be a disastrous avian 'flu pandemic.
The last pandemic proved to be more harmful than the World War itself, and certainly deadlier than all the quakes, storms, and bombs of recent history PUT TOGETHER. Read more about that mostly-forgotten episode here:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/virus/uda/
There is little doubt that the easiest way to contract a "crossover" disease is eating a carrier animal or bird. The most obvious counter-measure is burning infected livestock and poultry. The next logical steps would be 1) cremating bodies that die from such diseases and 2) stopping the consumption of non-vegetarian food. These two measures will possibly restrict the spread of avian flu dramatically.
Excavations show that the Harappa civilisation simply ceased to exist one day as did early Indus Valley civilisations, with no sign of violence or invasion (the so-called "Aryan Invasion"). It could have been caused by a combination of circumstances (like the drying up and shifting of the Saraswati river) or even a deadly viral outbreak - that fits the evidence.
These early indian cultures (the Indus Valley civlisation too) probably found the connection that is so evident now, made the change to vegetarianism and took to cremating bodies after death. Layer upon layer upon layer of this practice, and it is now inextricable from "Hinduism" itself. Of course, these practices are now seen with the "benefit" of much latter-day embellishment and justification, but maybe it started as a survival measure.
