They're not trivial attempts. You think of the evolution of abstract thought that went from daubing a pigment on one's skin, or scratching some vague likeness into dirt, or upon a cave wall, all the way up to, 'Jehovah creating and Allah, etc. The real problem is religious certainty where no certainty is possible and the death of the open mind that most religions demand, along with a willingness to listen to others.
In the foundations of these "trivial attempts" are societal building movements, the great flourishing of the arts, architectural masterpieces, philosophy, all have been seriously influenced by these trivial attempts. And one could say that science to this point in time has produced nothing cogent and so it too, could be considered trivial in regards to unravelling this ultimate mystery, you point to.
So nothing is being obscured by religion. The fundamentally religious today are the victims of their own thought crimes by substantiating absolutes where no absolute is possible, fantasy in place of accepting unknown realities. Science today has a free go at unlocking the origins of existance, it's just that it might have been some kind of reality that is unknowable in this present reality.
