When some ancient people within the Christian religion became too focused on their own pain as human beings they invented a sadistic story of fall and atonement to account for the random suffering they saw all around themselves.
When human beings believe themselves to be the special creation of a humanoid god there is much about life that does not make sense. It is understandable that creationism would lead to the belief that we are being punished for something that we did not ourselves do.
Only when we realize that the universe was not made especially for us can we also understand that we have evolved within the web of life. We do not need to come up with excuses for God to explain why a loving heavenly parent would invent something as pointless (from a human perspective) as cancer. Instead, we just need to step out of our self centered story as a species and realize we are leaves on the tree of life.
Life is painful, but it is beautiful.
Wendell Berry is an example of someone whose religion calls him deeper into science. His mystical and poetic nature does not untether him from the birds of the air to make room for a mythical heaven. His religion is a cosmic poetry that expresses his sense of deeper roots into nature
“When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
The symbols in Genesis can be understood as a call to the fairy tales of creationism, or they can be heard as poetic calls into an evolutionary spirit that is interwoven with every other life form.
The meaning of our lives is not found in concocting creationist narratives to make sense of our pain and death. The meaning of our lives is discovered by living joyously and courageously as cells in web of life and in realizing the beauty of life is worth the pain.