artificiality and religion

Artificiality and religion
Current mood: tired

Hi
I just returned from detroit. really good trip since i could meet my relatives, especially my aunt who just landed in US. Ironically its not relatives why i will remember this trip, but its becos lot of unseen artificiality of people towards religion, is why i will remember it. The only time i have been to temple in last two years is when i have been to Detroit, which leads to me ask a question? ru religious becos u show ur religious. or ru religious becos u practise ur religion in ur heart. Why do people have to tell me that if u do this u will be religious. By Hindu religion i am a Brahmin. By birth i should be the keeper of religion and preach people about my religion and my god and perform religious ceremonies. Till date i have never performed any ceremony, nor have i preached anyone abt Hinduism. Point being i have noway near practised my faith or like people like to call it wear it on my arm. Why am i asking these questions? becos when i was at this temple something triggered me to seek answers to these questions. I saw some people majjority of whom were ABCD's (american born confused..indians) who seem to trying to show their blind faith toward religion. were they trying to show that nobody but themselves are real religious followers of their faith, and why were majority of them ABCD's is it becos they have been brought up in a society which judges a person's morality on the number of times he goes to a church or temple?
So this brings me back to my original question am i religious becos i show i am religious or am i religious becos i practise my religiousness !! (new word ?) in my heart.After all what is religiousness..isnt it telling the good from the bad. Go and read any religious book..Bible..Bhagvad gita ..Koran and u will find that basic gist is that all these books ask u to live a life of purity and moralness. It asks u to do good and not do bad, they lay down the distinguishness between good and bad. However great deal of message might be lost in translating these books, various ppl might interpret various meanings from these books, hence we have the preachers or the priests. the so called keepers of religion. In any religion you will see that the most power is invested in the hands of priests. they control the way people live their lives. they control the way you think about any incident, in many cases they are also the vote gatheres. yes it happens in india and US and i am sure in many other countries. Why should so much power bein the hands of some one who tells us how we should live our lives? Cant each individual think on its own what is moral and what is not? if not then isnt education system a part of imparting morality, the more educated ur the less chances u will have of tripping in loose morals? and what is morality. it is not immoral to drink alcohol in chrsitianity, but it is considered immoral in hinduism..
Well i can only contemplate how my faith will be towards my religion. It will be what i thinkis good in my heart and not hurt others in my daily life, as long as they dont hurt me..
I can only say this much, offcourse people will disagree and have other ideas..which according to my religion ;) is OK