I mean, I can't speak for other Christian traditions, but modern day Catholicism is very interested in how the world works, scientifically and otherwise. I myself and a devout Catholic and a Medical Doctor, and in no way do those things conflict for me. I'm actually thinking about joining an order of Sisters (nuns) who are doctors also. When we think of God's plan, it isn't usually, oh, all those people were killed, but it's okay because God has a plan. It is usually, god has a plan for my life, he made me to do something that only I can do, I want to find out what it is. Or, in broader terms, that god wants as many people to be in his kingdom as possible, and he has a plan to do that (this is the lesser used one in Catholicism.)
In terms of Free Will, Catholics (again, not Calvinists) think it's compatible with an omniscient God.

Btw God did not NEED to sacrifice Himself for us. He chose to. Maybe as a display of love. Just like how God COULD suspend gravity at any time, but choses not to. God can do anything, but only chooses to do certain things. Why, human beings do not know. We do not pretend to know why God does some things and not others. That's why we trust that He has a plan and that whatever it is it is good.

It has to do with Jewish tradition. In the Bible, the Jewish people had to offer sacrifies for specific occasions (sin offering, grief offerings, etc.). That's what God commanded them. To end this tradition, He sent the perfect sacrifice to be the sin sacrifice for all sins ever. I doubt you want to go this far, but Dominican Priests (most often found at Catholic Newman Centers) are the best in apologetics. I know you'd have an interesting conversation with one. In addition, this type of stuff is not very well articulated over text, just because it takes way more than a paragraph or two to answer all your questions. And again, they are really good questions and I thank you for asking them. Let me know if ya want me to go into detail as to how free will can coexist with an omnipotent being

Okay one more. Another very beautiful part about the Crucifixion is how God came down to the level of his creation and experienced everything we did. He suffered the greatest form of execution for us just to know us better because He loves us that much. It's another way to look at it, but yea

Also, think of this from God's perspective. Could he have made a bunch of beings without free will? Sure--Jewish mysticism says that angels are beings without free will. There's actually a story that goes that god made the angels first. They had no free will and were therefore "perfect" by god's standards. But god got bored of them because if you make something that has no choice but to love you, is it really love that was earned? So, god made the humans who had the choice to love Him. After this part of the story, the whole Lucifer bit comes in where he got jealousy etc. Etc, but the illustration is good to think about why god gave us free will. BTW, these are really good, solid questions and thanks for asking them. Even if it is from a "I'm curious as to how Christians would answer this" that is just as valid as any other approach

@sir_spiderman Calvanists believe that people are saved (i.e. Go to heaven) through "grace" alone. It's predeterminist. That is, even though we have free will (every Christian pretty much says we have free will, it's mentioned several times in the Bible) god's grace alone will save us. Catholics, the Christians I associate with, say we need god's grace and good actions. So we have free will, we make good choices, we believe in Christ, and so we're saved. That being said, Catholics don't have a list of people going to hell, either. We're not allowed to say "oh, you're sinning in this way so you're going to hell" or even "you don't believe in christ, you're going to hell."

Whoa it's okay, I could see how someone be offended by this. It's alright little guest. Though I'm not on the same page as you, I understand

It might sound silly to a secular person, but basically, because God had already made the rules, a sacrifice was still required in atonement for sins. So Jesus, the ultimate and perfect sacrifice, gave His life so that our debt is paid

I've heard there are more sheep than people in NZ

To be fair, the headline just says the Eminem attacked him like no one had done before, not that it was the worst attack ever

So you can't be pro immigration if you refuse to host immigrants in your home?

That's how to originally killed animals faster than us, by chasing them to the point of exhaustion