Ok, there's a lot here, so I'm just going with the first post and giving my thoughts.
1. Why do evolution and God have to be mutually exclusive? I believe in both. In fact, Darwin was a believer in God himself (well, until his daughter died). He credits a creator, just read The Origin of Species. I think that God created life and let it grow on its own.
2. Suffering is what gives us depth. Without suffering, we wouldn't be able to know what happiness is. It's also necessary for free will. I mean, if you want to do something bad to someone but someone prevented it, the choice would be meaningless to begin with. Without suffering, there's no need to help others and no love. We wouldn't know ourselves, either. We cultivate our personalities and grow through overcoming obstacles. That also makes what we learn more meaningful. To me, it's like God lets us create ourselves. He gives us the raw materials, but we're the artists. Maybe God could prevent suffering, but He couldn't do so without losing all of those effects. Omnipotence is a paradox in that He could never overpower Himself, anyway. But omnipotence is not a prerequisite for the existence of a God, anyway.
3. I think most religions have some amount of truth in them. We're all interpretting the same thing through our own cultures and personal experiences. It's kind of like a person reading a novel. Religions are different because people are different, not because we are.
Already sort of answered the last one. Anyway, I think it's important to understand that God's existence is not dependent upon our preconceived notions of Him. I believe in Him, even though I'm not sure exactly what He is or whether He has a conscious will (long explanation there, not getting into it unless someone asks).
But there are things in this world that just don't fit with a material realist view of the world (don't get me started on NDEs, I will argue it into the ground). The scientific community tries to brush them off with a few explanations (which I make a point to make myself familiar with), and while they work for some cases, they certainly don't for all. I have trouble believing what I want to, and sometimes it seems unlikely that there's more to the world than what we see, but... in the end, I can't find any other answer. We don't have proof in that we can't study it and measure it, but we have strong evidence that doesn't make sense otherwise. People also say there might be other explanations, but some things are just impossible in a completely material world. Well, that's all I've got, unless someone challenges me.