A Battle of Wits in God, With Skin On

I ponder many things in life. And lately I have pondered the whole good verses evil. I have a problem trying to understand why God didn’t chose another path to redemption. For that matter why didn’t God just put an end to it all and condemn Lucifer to hell and the rest of us got a free pass to Eden?
There are no answers. Where did God come from? The theological answer is, He always was. He always was what? Everything and everyone has to come from something. That’s the science of it all. Much like which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Yes there are days that I doubt the whole creations/redemption story. It sounds to me like two egotistical powers decided to see which one could beat the other and we humans became not only pawns but our souls become the prize. And if we don’t follow the rules of God we loose the game.
I have more questions than answers. Where do we go when we die? Some say we enter what is knows as “soul sleep”, other say to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. But present where? Heaven? It is 1500 square miles in size or 2,250,000 sq miles total. Why can’t we see something that big?
We are asked to accept the Bible by faith. The problem is, faith doesn’t work within the 5 senses. I am not saying God isn’t real or the Bible is just a fairy tale. I am just saying some days it’s hard to accept. Much like seeing the forest for the trees!