I think the point is that there are unknowns that religion lays claim to that are the same unknowns that science is chipping away at. Surely the origin of life and how a universe formed are the biggest questions in science and that is the friction zone between religion and science. It should not be because neither side has a single answer.
We do not know that a cause is not required. It could be said that you are taking the religious evidence, that is, the immutability of nature, the relationship of these laws, the nature of matter and energy, etc and then assuming that they all just popped up from the void with their properties intact ready to produce a universe and life. Once it's all up and doing its thing then it appears like it does not need a cause, but you are intersecting well along the journey and not at the formative period after a tone of cause has been applied.
Everything in this universe is contingent, that is the effect of some cause, and it is, so we can be pretty certain that the universe itself is the outcome of a cause, if we then ask, well if a great chain of causes go all the way back to God, what caused God?
Logic then tells us that infinite regression of causation is an impossible paradox because we could never arrive in the present via infinite causation. Therefore there must be something that is uncaused, that being God. So we have cleared up this question of, who created God and removed any notion of the impossible paradox.
It matters not what is special or not about this universe, it is what it is. We can't understand what we have, let alone postulating on other probable universes. Besides, the exactitudes to form this universe are so profoundly incalculable that it's a pretty safe bet that this is universe is exactly the right outcome.
Science can transcend all the stupidity of religion because it is amoral, empirical truth based and should not waste its time debating the wankers from Creationism, Literalism, Fundamentalism, because in a sense it validates them in an us and them way.
The God I suggest we leave out is the God of religion, not the God of truth and reality. It may be that no God exists at all but so far the evidence strongly suggests that a source of cause, purpose, will and desired outcome permeates the system. Religion is a progressing system, it will never be an absolute truth and will remain a relative truth, after all the subject matter ranges from 100% abstract and thus ever beyond our pay grade, to general themes of morality and virtue building to structure better human societies.
