I think about this stuff All. The. Time. But I want compose a comprehensive response and that will have to wait.
Elevator (maybe I've said some of this to you already?)
If God is truly merciful then when we die it's lights out.
God is one such story and that's OK. Our stories make us human. God is as real as money, as real as society (fuck you Margaret Thatcher), as real as history.
Human evil exists because of our imperfect nature, and without natural evil we would never learn anything. The way a child who never gets a skinned knee, steps on a nail, or gets stung by a wasp never truly learns to be careful.