I agree with you, “Just because” and “due to random chance” don't cut it for me either. I think the major difference between us is that I'm not willing to make the assumption that the explanation for why we are here is simply "god". I don't believe this assumption, because I have no evidence. As I've said before, I'm not going to blindly believe anything without evidence.
You said, "frankly I’m surprised that a person of a scientific mind is content with such an answer" but that's exactly it... we AREN'T content with "just because" or "random chance". If we were, there wouldn't be scientific study. Just because I don't know all the answers, that doesn't mean I don't want to know them. But I am fine with saying, "I don't know." when it comes to answering the currently unexplainable, and not just assuming any answer (including god) is correct without further study.
In regards to your comments on human behavior, humans obviously follow specific rules (or laws), but this is not at all the same the universe following the laws of nature. For example, it is socially unacceptable to murder, and for the most part, MOST humans follow that social rule, but not all do. In contrast, the earth CANNOT decide to not have gravity and let us all float away.
This subject really is non-sequitur and should be a separate debate entirely, but I'll touch on it a little. The social laws humans follow change with time and are relative to whatever situation and culture you are in. To say that there are universal rights and wrongs is being completely ignorant to the values that other cultures than our own have, or have had. For example, I believe that slavery is absolutely wrong, but just a few hundred years ago, it was socially acceptable. I personally don't understand how they could find this acceptable, but it was. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few hundred years, the people in the future find us to be primitive savages. The answer to WHY we have social laws is extremely complex, but can be studied with the social sciences and human behavior sciences. Philosophy certainly can go pound for pound with religion in terms of debating morality and right and wrong.
In your last argument you said, "It is possible that I am looking for an answer where there is none. It is possible that “just because” or “random chance” are the answers to these questions, in which asking “why” is a worthless endeavor simply for the fact that there is no answer to that question. But I suspect that, if that were true, we would never have progressed to a point that we could have found out that there is no purpose – we would not have had the inspiration to ask such a question. If there is no purpose to this life and there is no answer to the question of why, I suspect we should never have found out that such was the case." I again fall back to "pareidolia" as an explanation as to why humans ask the questions, "Why" and "Why are we here?" Why do you think that humans could not have progressed to the point of asking, "why" without there actually being an answer? Is there something in that answer that would provide for us to evolve into humans?
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