
I hope I didn't award custody, Rich.  I purposely used "handle" in order to 
avoid doing so - i.e., that happens to be what religions do (of course there are
aberrations like "scientific" creationism).  I used "best" in part to indicate 
that science currently has a time of it with why and who, so these domains are
mostly ignored.  I also attempted to be brief, which no doubt confused the
matter.  As an aside, for science I should have written "how and when".  Nobody
seems to argue over what.


Seems to me that the answer would vary from individual to individual.  I'm not
trying to be evasive on this, but from a societal perspective, religion works.
On the other hand, sometimes it is abused and misused, and many suffer, which
you know.  But the net result seems positive, this from the anthropological
perspective on human affairs.  You might call me a neo-Fruedian insofar as I 
think the masses can't get along without religion.  Not that generally they are 
incapable; they just don't, and for myriad reasons, but the main one seems to 
be the promise of immortality.  Very seductive, that immortality.  Therefore 
it seems that theologians are better equipped than the others you mention for 
dispensing answers to "who and why".  I suggest that this holds regardless of 
the "truth" in their answers to who and why simply because people believe.  
In the end, spiritual beliefs are just as "real" as scientific facts and 
explanation (CAUTION TO SOME: DO NOT TAKE THIS OUT OF CONTEXT).  


No.  In fact, I don't think it is closed now, at least for some individuals. 
Isn't there a group of theoretical physicists who argue that matter was 
created from nothing in a Big Bang singularity?  This approach might 
presuppose an absence of who and why, except that it seems it could be argued 
that something had to be responsible for nothing?  Maybe that something doesn't
have to be supernatural, maybe just mechanistic.  But that's a tough one for
people today to grasp.  In any case, theory without empirical data is not 
explanation, but then your question does not require data.  In other words, 
I agree that theorizing (within scientific parameters) is just as scientific 
as explaining.  So the answer is, who and why are not closed to scientists, but 
I sense that science in these realms is currently very inadequate.  Data will 
be necessary for improvement, and that seems a long way off, if ever.  Pretty 
convoluted here; I hope I've made sense.  


I agree generally.  But I prefer to put it this way - the *questions* of how, 
when, who and why were not open to inquiry.  During the Enlightenment, 
reason was reponsible for questioning the theological answers to how and when, 
and not, for the most part, who and why.  Science was thus born out of the 
naturalists' curiosity, eventually carting away the how and when while largely 
leaving behind the who and why.  The ignorant, the selfish, the intolerant, and
the arrogant, of course, still claim authority in all four domains.



Much obliged.  Funny how facts tend to muddle things, isn't it?  Well, I am
sure there are plenty of "scientific" creationist "rebuttals" out there 
somewhere, even if they have to be created from nothing.

[just for the record, again, AMH = anatomically modern humans] 

Best regards :-),