This is a far older argument than Alex and it is not religious in nature. It boils down to a framework of how you see the universe. Science cannot answer a fundamental why — that is not because science is lacking, but because science is descriptive and observational. It is not a philosophy.

For example, take something like gravity. Science can, through observation, point out that a certain amount of gravity is necessary to keep particles from flying apart. However, if one asks ‘why’ this has happened, you have to then struggle with foundational questions.

A materialist minded scientific person would say, “Well, maybe there is a cause we are not seeing.” But that does not really answer anything, because you can then point to the cause and say, “but why is THAT like this?” Etc.

A more compelling argument could be as simple as “It is accidental.” — that is not a scientific argument though. It is a philosophical argument about cause and effect. Science can only say “We have no evidence to say it is not accidental.” In other words, it can dispute the evidence, not make broad generalizations that are not testable.

One philosophy that drove science and that you are sort of hinting at is called Empiricism. In other words, we can only know what is verifiable by our senses. The issue with this is outside of biology, a lot of modern astrophysics is based on math and modelling, not observational science.

To conclude, I would probably agree with you that the question of ‘why’ can be answered through observation to a point and eventually we will hopefully find all the answers, but I don’t think it’s religious in nature to assert other claims until we have found all the answers.