@Wizzy,
First, I'd like to say I'm very impressed by these previous few responses. I'm glad a signed up for this forum.
Fist I will address Vasska.
It appears you ask three questions.
1.Why does god let bad things happen?
2.God is indeed dead and has been replaced!
3.The existence of God is relative!
4.Show me arguments from the pope!
1.To assume the question "why does god let bad things happen" is to assume that god
does in fact exist (though we "know" he may not). Perhaps the problem here is that we refer to God , or "him" as
folk (when I say folk god, I say a sexed(male) old white guy with a beard the size of zeus).
Not that this is my view
2.I'm glad you follow Nietzsche so avidly. I'd put the quote from the madman but that's too much room. So
that god has been replaced by something or someone else, I'm guessing you refer to man. You could not be referring to a higher power because that would be a substitute God. I think you would enjoy transhumanist literature. It is a view I subscribe to from time to time.
3.I agree, we must discuss our options.4."Today, a particularly insidious obstacle to the task of educating is the massive presence in our society and culture of that relativism which, recognizing nothing as definitive, leaves as the ultimate criterion only the self with its desires. And under the semblance of freedom it becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from one another, locking each person into his or her own "ego". - Pope Benedict, 2005
Let's not forget that before Pope Benedict was Pope Benedict,
he was Professor Ratzinger. The trick to reading him is not to look at benedicts robes and big white hat and big church/house, but to look and appreciate his rationale and wisdom as a philosopher. He is also a very able logician. He's critique of relativism is very interesting, that in accepting no definitive answers (which he takes to mean God) we create an elastic prison (our ego) that we cannot escape from. Do I agree with it? Well, the answer is
[censored]we must assume that neither exists. Descartes, the founder of modern philosophy and first of the rationalists, came to the conclusion that we must doubt everything to know at least something.
As for evidence, especially in the bible, that's the interesting thing to show then, isn't it. The bible was composed by
(and I'm not going to put the historical facts because there boring)not