1. I agree that good works do count for something and do effect your life on earth, BUT they still won't save your soul, nor can you honestly trust them to save you from your sins.
2.Roman Catholicism=bad, just plain bad. history itself teaches that.
3.What you're trying to push is the Old Testament law that explained that you were to be saved by righteousness and faith in God.
Remember that Noah was the only person on earth at that time who truly was right with God, so the ability to be saved was non-existent if you weren't predestined. Face it, even if you could be saved by works, it doesn't mean anybody ever would. The sheer amount of works you would have to do would be inhuman and unbearable. That's why Jesus allowed salvation by faith alone.

The majority of Western Laws and morals are basically built by the Roman Catholics are they not? I mean ten commandments and all that stuff. Now, obviously people should realise that being a good person is good because your being good rather than for fear of going to hell, but still, point remains that history does teach us that the Roman Catholic Church is very important, so how on earth is it bad? Well not now, but it did have it's uses in history. Apologies if that isn't what you mean though :P

I'm probably wrong though.

Yeah but it was also used for lots of good things like church's being shelters for people and it would also help a lot in the local villages and towns, and would be great for some of the poorer people who would of had nothing but there god in them days. It's just that now we look back on it we notice all the bad things, because if a historian looks at something and finds that priests in a church did exactly what they were meant to do, then obviously there not going to write about it. In my opinion a lot of bad things are over-dramatised when thinking about the Catholic Church because it's almost like people want to dislike it because it's cool to be aethiest.

Obviously there was corruption and murder BUT you have to look at it in the bigger picture and realise that it wasn't every single priest in the country that was ripping everyone off. I just think that a lot of good people are being made out to be evil when it was just a few who abused their rights.

All of the Ten Commandments, being written by men, obviously already existed. Look to the great city of Babylon and you'll find an advanced civilised culture that existed before any publication of these ten commandments.

One thing that I find interesting is how revered the Commandments are, and yet how few people can actually recite them. The American public almost unanimously want the ten commandments displayed in courthouses, and yet can't name more than two or three.

While I'm all for the ones about murder, theft and adultery, the four or five (depending on your version) all about bowing down to God are just ridiculous, and then there's a pair at the end about jealousy... How is jealousy a) a crime, b) punishable. Jealousy is a natural reaction, and while I'm all for discouraging people from acting on such an emotion, calling thought a crime is just utter nonsense. Might as well just have a commandment that says "and in addition to all the previous crimes, you should also never even think about any of these acts, because that too is a crime." As for honouring mother and father, well hey sure, especially if they beat you and rape you.

The good commandments are self-evident in any society, and come through philosophy. As Aristotle once apparently said "I have gained this by philosophy - that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law."

Whether that law be the law of the kingdom, or the law of god, far better for a person to do something because they believe it to be right, than to be told that it is right by way of the threat of punishment.

The fundies claimed the rapture was due yesterday.

Clearly they were wrong.

I really don't understand how anyone can use the argument of "there is no way of proving god doesn't exist etc." The burden of proof does not fall onto the skeptic. If you want me to believe something it isn't my job to prove it doesn't exist it is your job to prove it does exist, and with God you really can't do that (at least not in a way that would satisfy my level of scrutiny).

But more on topic to the original post, if this Christian God does exist the dude is a bigger dick than Snidely Whiplash. I mean what "loving" God says

No, on second thought that guy sounds totally cool and nice.

Dude, how far west are you thinking? Christianity(Protestant that is) teaches being good for the sake of being good and not being evil. We go to hell for reasons unrelated to good deeds. Roman Catholics enforced its brutal regime for hundreds of years in europe and (some parts of)the Middle East. They killed for the sake of preserving their own power and ideals, no matter how wrong they were, the catholic church openly blasphemes the Bible entirely if you read the original manuscript and compare it to their Vulgate.

But more on topic to the original post, if this Christian God does exist the dude is a bigger dick than Snidely Whiplash. I mean what "loving" God says

No, on second thought that guy sounds totally cool and nice.

Yeah that's calvinism, a denomination of protestantinism, people chose to make up their own little sects just because they didn't want to submit to God's rules and continue their sinning. I'm not one of those idiot wannabe christians who use the Old Testament for "pro-life" purposes. I just plain don't like abortions, gays, and I'm fine with capital punishment, but back to topic.

Come to think of it, I haven't seen theCDs in a few days...