that only this morning, I heard Richard (The God Delusion) Dawkins address this specific point, in a public radio piece on "consciousness" -- his was one short audio clip in a packed and provocative program hour including the views of Sam Harris:

Religious moderates, Harris says in his patient and imperturbable style, have immunized religion from rational discussion by nurturing the idea that faith is so personal and private that it is beyond criticism, even when horrific crimes are committed in its name.
"There is this multicultural, apologetic machinery that keeps telling us that we can't attack people's religious sensibility," Harris says in an interview. "That is so wrong and so suicidal. . ."

and philosopher Ken Wilber, etc.

So, Richard Dawkins' bit in this case, was just long enough to say that all our awareness and experience of life, both inner and outer, is based on human consciousness, there's no way for science to prove where it came from in the first place --
BUT he concludes, it's completely absurd to assert that therefore a faith-based explanation is any better, or any answer at all.