"More people have died in the name of god than for any other reason." George Carlin

Woah, ok, there's a lot to clarify and delve into here. Not a problem, but this may be long. First off, why do you assume that text form is the worst form of communication possible? Secondly, the Bible was not written by an omnipotent being. God did NOT write the Bible. The Bible is the "inspired word" of God, that means that people wrote it, and those people were inspired by God to do so. God made sure that the books he wanted in the Bible were put in. Thirdly, we CAN know what to take literally and what not to take literally because Jesus Christ instituted a Church that was made for this purpose(among many other things). Fourthly, you assume that the best way to have God reveal himself would be to come down and talk to us. The reason He doesn't do this is because if he did then no one would truly love him. If God came down in all his glory and power, then you would be terrified of his power and only follow his rules because you would be afraid of going to hell. You wouldn't love him out of true selfless love. But that's what God wants, he wants you to love him without any fear. He wants you to love him without fear of his infinite power and majesty. That's why he came into this world as a lowly baby in a manger. He could have come in power and glory and taken everything back that Satan took; but he didn't. If he did that then he wouldn't have saved anyone from their sin. Only on rare occasions does God reveal himself directly to people (ex. Saint Paul). And he usually only reveals himself to people who already love him. Fifthly, priests and pastors are not infallible, they can be wrong about things. The bishops of the Church are the only ones who can teach infallibly on issues of morality and faith, and even then they have to be in an official council to do so. Sixthly, Hitler was not a devout Christian. Hitler grew up in a Christian(Catholic) household but then later in life renounced religion altogether and became the head of the Nazi movement, a movement inspired by the atheistic philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and his idea of the "bermensch. Seventhly, God does not kill people. The "acts God does in the OT" are not to be taken literally true. I don't know why you believe that I either have to believe everything literally in the Bible or believe nothing literally. The two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, history shows that this idea of literal interpretation was only recently made up. It was created by fundamentalist Christians during the 18th century!! If you look at early documents of the Church fathers you can clearly see that none of them had this view. To the point that Jesus cannot be the Messiah because he broke the law of the Sabbath, this is a misunderstanding of the law. Jesus's point after "breaking" the law was that the Pharisees took the law to the extreme. They accused him of having his disciples violate the law by gather wheat on the Sabbath. Jesus told them that it is more important to help others than to follow a law to the very point, with no exceptions. There are only two commandments that are absolute, in the sense that they are the first and most important. Jesus basically just condensed the 10 commandments with the two Greatest Commandments. They are: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." - Mark 12:30-32 From these two commandments all others follow. So the disciples were doing God's will by helping others, in this case, gathering wheat for themselves. You ask what is worse, death or hell? Hell is worse, far worse than death. The Jewish people in the Old Testament believed that there was no heaven or hell, only Sheol. That's why heaven and hell seem to be different in the OT and the NT. Heaven and Hell are Christian beliefs, not Jewish ones. The point of 1 John 5:1 is that if you live in Christ you cannot sin. That does not mean if you're a Christian you automatically cannot not sin. Christians sin all the time, I know I do. The meaning of this passage is that when you sin you lose grace(Life in Christ). Grace is what gives us the strength to not sin, but does not automatically make you impervious to temptation. I agree that the Bible is confusing, that's why Jesus established his Church to make sure that there was an absolute interpretation of God's word. At one point in your argument you bring up that God doesn't exist so I can't prove that he's all good. So wait a minute. Hold up, I thought the whole point of this debate was for me to prove that God was good based on the assumption that he exists. If you're going to argue against God's existence, I can disprove that on another debate, but right now, this debate is starting with the assumption that he does. So please stay on track. I also don't care what other "Catholics" think or feel about their faith. You cannot consider yourself a true Catholic if you don't accept the dogmas and doctrines of the Catholic Church. Don't get me wrong, even I struggle with certain doctrines, but I don't just completely decide to not believe in those doctrines then. You are allowed to struggle with your faith, but you cannot not accept them. You said you wanted proof that God is all powerful, eternal, ect. Here you go: Omnipresence - Jeremiah 23:24 Omniscience - Psalm 147:5 Omnipotence - Colossians 1:6, Colossians 1:7, Matthew 19:26 Eternal - Genesis 21:33 You also asked why Satan is evil. Satan is evil because he rejected God and went his own way. If a human did this, that doesn't mean he's evil, but because Satan is an angel, a spirit, he is unchanging. If you exist outside of time, then you cannot change your mind(like God). Once you make a decision you cannot go back, it's just not possible. Change requires time. Outside of time there cannot be change. That's why after you die you cannot change your mind. If you are in a state of mortal sin(meaning you don't love God and therefore don't want to be with him) and you die, then you are going to want to separate yourself from Him (Hell). Anyways, Satan was given a choice, and he chose to defy God. His defiance is eternal. Now think, if Satan defies God, whom is all good, and his [Satan's] choice is for all time, then it would follow that Satan is evil. Finally, you said that the New Testament is the most unreliable source in the Bible. I can understand the confusion here, but in actuality, the Old Testament is the least reliable of the two. Consider this, the Old Testament was written hundreds of years after the events written about actually took place. The stories were passed down orally, told from one generation to the next. During this time, it is likely that the stories were embellished with small tweaks and other changes. Now consider that the first book ever written in the New Testament (The Gospel of Mark), was written only 30 to 40 years after Jesus's Death and Resurrection. The letters of Saint Paul were written by Paul himself 50 to 60 years after, and the rest of the gospels only 50 to 60 years after. There's a lot more reliability in the NT than in the OT. You might ask why the Bible wasn't written immediately after Jesus's D&R. Well, at first the apostles thought Jesus was going to come very soon, like in a few years. They started preaching and spread out but eventually, they started dying off, little by little. By the time word reached those[apostles] still alive, they began to realize that it may take a while longer than first expected for Jesus to return and they should probably write down what happened before it was lost. To end with, you asked that "who am I to say no to what other Christians believe". Well, it's not just me. I don't make things up, in fact, I've never come to a conclusion that someone else didn't already have before me. When I came to different conclusions that I thought were completely original, I later found out that several people already came to that same conclusion hundreds or thousands of years before. Nothing I say is original, I merely repeat what others have discovered before me. So to answer your question on how can I speak on other Christians'(Catholics) behalf, my answer is "Well, I'm not, I'm just repeating the things that Christians (more specifically Catholics) are supposed to believe."