Indian Gods

The blind faith of people in the various gods and goddesses never ceases to amaze(and disappoint) me. Or let me rephrase that, The Blind faith of people in self proclaimed representatives of the various gods and goddesses never ceases to amaze. Case in point , when I visited a temple in Kollur (the mookambika godess) , all men had to enter her presence bare chested. There is of course no logical reason for this , but faith doesn't need any logical reason. Surprising the previous day we visited some other temple and of course there was no such restriction there. All the temples in India (or atleast in the south) are becoming increasing commercialized. There is a list of pujas with suitable prices attached varying from the Rs 25 to the Rs 2000. The gods (or their idols) are locked up at one end of a long dark passage and all one can do is peer at them from afar. Though that doesn't prevent thousands of devotees from prostrating themselves. The tirupathi temple earned a revenue in crores and is considering increasing the price of the puja's to well, earn more.
Indians seems incapable of differentiating between gods and between a priest/brahmin/mullah/bhatr who claim to know more than the rest, who claim to be closer to good and are able to put in a good word for the rest of us. perhaps we should give up the pretense and worship them instead.