The IRS and God

What do we owe God? Nothing. This not a question of debt. You haven’t borrowed anything from God. You have not run up a “tab” at some kind of celestial “company store”. You didn’t ask God for life. Your parents made that decision for you. You didn’t ask God for “soul”. You didn’t ask God for a portion of free will. These things were imposed on you.

Free will allows you both rejection and refusal. You can ignore your responsibilities. That is your right. You can choose to remain underdeveloped and immature. When you are given a free gift, you do not have a reciprocal obligation to pay anything back. If you do, it was not a gift, but a loan. The relationship between a person taking out a loan and the one making the loan, is quite different from your relationship to God.

Perhaps God is only making a loan of soul, and He doesn’t tell us. He has no obligation to do so, as He requires no payments and no interest during your lifetime. I think God only collects His interest, your lifetime learning, after you die. The best part is, your relatives do not have to repay this “loan” from your estate. And, it isn’t taxed by the IRS.

What God accomplished those many billions of years ago when He created the Universe, and later when He visited Earth to “start the process of life” is widely separated from the present person that is you. If there ever was any “obligation” owed to these acts, that debt has long since been paid, probably by the dinosaurs. That big asteroid sixty-five million years ago could have been the “Loan Paid” red stamp of debt conclusion, but I don’t think God works quite that way.

If there is any debt that you owe on the day you are born it is to your ancestors. You owe a great deal more to them than you do to God. You have a real connection to them. They were survivors. They were smart, lucky, tough, and good decision makers. They ran fast, knew when to play it safe, were quick, disease resistant, knew when to stay home, and knew when to mind their own business. They had enough sex with enough partners early in life and had at least one child that survived before any bad decisions fatally caught up with them.

If all of this was not true, you simply would not be here now.

Every person alive today is a representative of a bunch of very tough, or very lucky survivors.

Therefore, you owe nothing to God. Not money, not respect, not prayer, not labor, not suffering, no celebrations, no ceremonies, no rites, and especially no sacrifices. I suppose you could offer these things to your ancestors, several religions do. At least your ancestors have no collection agency. God has the power, but does not care, as He will collect eventually.

At the end of your life you will be delivering something to God that He wants. You will be delivering, free of charge, the sum total of your life, your experiences, and what you have learned. That will be your gift to God. This life of yours was, in the end, an exchange of gifts. When you were small, God gave you two small gifts, free will and soul, like the wise men with gifts of frankincense and myrrh, and now after your death, past any concept of obligation, you return to God with your “Christmas” gift to Him.

Article Source: http://www.religionarticlelibrary.com

(c) Copyright 2006: George Wallace completed an MA and taught in the public schools for 28 years. He recently published a book on religion which lashes out at nearly all of the comfortable ideas about God, the trappings of organized religion, the layers of money sucking priesthood, and their departures from the fundamental ideas and messages of Religion. His pithy comments and suggestions for a return to a God-centered personal religion will outrage everyone. www.OhGodIsThatYou.com

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