Why "by faith alone" irritates me

I think for the most part it is just how we all define faith that leads to so many divisions among christians.

Catholics say faith and good works. To us faith is believing that yes in fact Jesus is God and did some awesome stuff for us, blah, blah, blah. But this definition of faith has no action, just personal beliefs. The good works come from living out the faith we have. What point is there in believing in an amazing love that God has for us and then only work for our own good? If someone believes in something it should be apparent in the person's life, shouldn't it? That would be good works, the tougher level of faith. It's easy to say a horse will win but much harder to believe it enough to gamble on it. That's what good works can be. When someone believes enough in God to bet on Him and His ways.

My ignorance will now have to show itself because I'm not sure what all the schisms and different beliefs of the protestants are. From what I can gather though, their beliefs aren't that different. Faith is a broader definition to them incorporating the good works I was alluding to in the paragraph above. They also speak much of grace. I don't quite understand this though to be honest. I always thought of grace as a gauge or the symptom of how close we are to God. If we are pursuing God and doing what we believe is His will, we will be gifted with grace. This is mainly an internal thing I'd imagine but I don't know. Also, a lack of grace would come from sin, thus Mary was "full of grace" since she was a devoted handmaiden of God. So I think the protestant version of faith is quite compatible with the catholic form except that they incorporate good works into their working definition.

But I'm sure they would disagree. For some reason, protestants (at least the one's I know) quiver with religious fury if I mention good works and rant on how we can't earn our way into heaven. Which is an interesting way to look at the belief. It's a twisted form of the action but I can see their point. But there is a difference in doing stuff for your parents from love and gratitude and doing stuff for them so they will be indebted to you. Protestants claim the catholic belief is the latter but that is silly. A god that created everything and everyone, the stars to the atom, will not be able to be indebted to us. We can't do anything that could possibly make Him "owe" us. It's just not possible. We are doing works in a world He created, for someone He created, and He is above all of this. He can not be hurt by us no more than we can be hurt by plankton. So with no real power comparatively, how will I ever owe plankton? So obviously the idea is silly to have that we will "earn" our way into heaven when we all deserve hell. That is the place we have all earned. So with something this simple to see, why do protestants think the catholic church, the mother of their own churches, the church that was able to lead men to Christ for thousands of years (okay...only two), the most stable body of Christ, could be so foolish as to think they can make God owe them? Do they think we are that blind or dim-witted? I hope not...