Seriously?! You're comparing religion with Alzheimer's?
Alzheimer's is a disease that some people get and other don't but it is never a choice.
Religion is a choice unless someone pointed a gun at your head and forced you to convert.
I don't know any religion in Christianity that does such a thing so I guess it is up to you to be part of that religion or not.
Unfortunately Christianity did just that from the fifth until well into the eighteenth century in Europe and it and was hapening in other places until much later still. It is arguably has been the position of the Evangelical right in the United States since the early 1980's. And of course several of those United States had their origins in Christian intolerance.
Is it possible for a person to remain Hindu if he should come to a realization that there is one real god?
Isn't that the majority Hindu position; that Brahman=Vishnu=Krishna and so on? That they are all aspects of one another. Oddly my brain accepts that as making sense; but the Christian Trinity causes the gears to clash.
I don't know. If it was the Abrahamic god, then you'd be Abrahamic, no? If it was one of the Hindu Gods that is considered Supreme, then sure, why not?
I remember a Hare Krishna monk speaking on RTE2 some decades ago causing outrage at his Irish school when it became clear to the teacher who had asked him to discuss some aspect of his faith that the Issa he was speaking about was Jesus. From that I understand that at least one strain of Hindu belief equates the Christian god with their own. It is unsurprising that Jesus might be seen as Krishna; there are umistakable resemblances in their birth mythologies for instance and there is persistant Christian legend that Jesus acquired his teaching in India.
This bias to the ecumenical is certainly a plus point for Hindu religiosity against The Abrahamic religions but one only has to look at mosque/temple controversies in India to see it still keeps up it's share of religious fuelled hate and violence.
The phycisist and philosopher Victor Stenger died earlier this week. He summed up the problem of religion with this comment: "Science flies men to the moon; religion flies men into buildings." "But the vast majority of us are peaceful and decry this behaviour!" the faithful shout. This might be true; but it still leaves millions prepared to kill and hundreds of millions to condone them doing so.
And then there are crimes of ommision. Could you concieve anything more pacific or inoffensive as Jainism? However; if you cannot kill mosquitoes or their parasites; malaria will kill you or your children. Catholics have a hate on contraception; this leads to AIDS being rampant in places like the Philippines and countries not being able to feed themselves or provide adequate health care because of population pressures. This also applies to Muslim societies.
Muslim societies are blighted by their faith's active promotion of scientific ignorance; a trait shared by the Evangelical Christian right. The core texts of the Abrahamic faiths deny reality and have a world view firmly anchored in the Bronze Age. The majority of their adherents and leadership view these texts as being without error.
Two American presidents and a British prime minister have governed with lunatic Apocalyptic religion front and centre. Get that: they thought they were living in the End Times and were conversing with a God not adverse to maximum genocide if you looked at Him the wrong way. It is only by chance they did not blow the world up; as it is their religion prompted wars and a cycle of death that has not abated. Let us not forget also that their Death Cult version of Christianity was part-fuelled by, and in turn fuelled, the Death Cult that is militant Islam.
I could go on; but you get the drift. Comparing religion with a disease is not unreasonable. I wouldnt have chosen Alzheimers however; I think religion has more in common with a virulent plague or cancer. Either way; it is about time the patient sought medical help.
