What does a “good” person have in common with a “good” cheeseburger or a “good” story? You don’t think a cheeseburger or a story are good because they’re honest and caring. Again I’m not being facetious. Thinking deeply about this is what will ultimately help lead to true happiness.

Let’s change adjectives. Some people are naturally faster than others. Fast being the characterization of being quick relative to the average of a particular category or instance. If I want to be a faster runner, wouldn’t I first need to know what fast means? As in, why would I spend my time bulking up and gaining weight like a sumo wrestler if my goal is to be fast? Knowing what “fast” means (in this case “good”) is of utmost importance.

Back to the context above. Like you said, some people have a disposition of being more good (faster) than others. But if I wanted to be even faster than I am naturally, wouldn’t I benefit from training on my own? So too we can become better people using our reason without the need for divine revelation (just as people like Socrates, Plotinus, and the multitude of people that are still good people without Christianity). But what if I could ask someone like Usain Bolt to teach me how to be faster? That’s the case with Jesus (God) who is perfectly (meaning the absolute of the abstract concept) good. He established his training academy (the Church) with approved teachers (the Magisterium) to guard and promulgate his divine revelation (Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture) so that all may know how to be better people (or faster like the analogy). What better way to learn to be good than from the fastest there is, was, and ever will be? Sure a gym teacher (non-clergy) who’s never been taught by or even heard of Usain Bolt could still teach me how to be faster but it would only take me so far.

If someone has a trainer to be faster (like Usain himself), would you say they’re not a fast person? If someone looks to Jesus for his help in being a better person, are they not really a good person?

This analogy has some flaws like treating God as an option or a utility (means to an end). He’s not an option and we are to love Him for Him not for oneself. However, it should hopefully make apparent the point of needing to know what “good” means in the abstract just as we know what “fast”, “big”, “hard”, and other adjectives mean. 

 *What better way to learn to be good than from the best person there is, was, and ever will be? 

 this posits two assumptions, that 1) the path to good is through a single gatekeeper (how convenient for said entity), and 2) all dependent on your view that human beings are inherently sinful. while that’s part of a bigger conversation, I would personally take the stance that maybe sin isn’t such a terrible thing. nature is inherently sinful, full of horrors, but does that make it wrong or bad? and even if it were, then it goes back to my first question: why must the church have exclusive authority on my pathway to salvation. maybe I found god in my work as a carpenter or tailor. my point is, to each their own and gatekeepers or authorities make me suscipsious 

 suspicious* (not sure what that autocorrected word is 🤣) 

 I don’t see where I made the first assumption given I said people can be faster (better) on their own through their use of reason or through someone like a gym teacher (self help people, teachers of philosophy, non-Christian religious leaders, etc.). Jesus is not a gatekeeper to being good. There are plenty of very good people that have never heard the Gospel.

Regarding your second point, it again seems to be a matter of definition. What is “sin”? Where do you see nature being sinful? If you’re referring to a lion hunting its prey, that’s not a sin. Humans can and do sin because we are rational animals with the able to discern right from wrong (morality). When we act counter to the eternal law, we sin. You and I agree that nature, otherwise known as creation, is good. Very good, in fact. God created all of this out of nothing so that we too can enjoy it and even create alongside Him and be stewards of the world. Many come to God in their jobs/work.

I agree it’s good to question. I encourage you to seek for you will find. The Church does not guarantee salvation. It cannot and will not ever make such a presumption because the Church is not the judge. We don’t know who is or isn’t in Hell aside from Satan. Hell is a choice. People, by their own free will, choose Hell. I believe it was C.S. Lewis that said the gates of Hell are locked from the inside.

It seems the crux of it comes down to Original Sin. I believe in it, you deny it. We live in objective reality, one of us has to be right. I believe humans can act selfishly, be rude, harm others, lie, steal, cheat, deceive, etc. You believe humans don’t do those things as part of their nature. I ask you then, if you look around the world why do humans constantly act against their nature? If a cat has a particular nature, wouldn’t you find it bizarre if it was constantly behaving like a dog or a pig or a beaver and going against its nature? 

 I think selfishness is inherent in human nature, and in all of nature. I also question if there is anything wrong with that. there is a great symbiosis to it. a more worrisome act to me on a greater scale is the rejection of this. “for the greater good” is a loved phrase by dictators and tyrants for a reason 

 We know acting selfishly is wrong because of its definition as an “excessive” concern with oneself. We see it everywhere in modern society with men abandoning children, women killing infants in their womb, etc. Taking care of oneself within reason is not selfishness. Prioritizing oneself at the expense of others is selfishness and is bad.

Agreed, Church teaching is that good ends do not justify bad means. It is staunchly opposed to utilitarianism, for example. Quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1755: “A morally good act requires the goodness of the object, of the end, and of the circumstances together.” 1756: “One may not do evil so that good may result from it”.

Christian teaching opposes tyranny. But it does it not through its own tyranny, instead through love. So much so that God Himself, who could do whatever He wants, chose to die on the cross so that we may learn to suffer for love as much as Him and in the end, come out triumphant.