Delusions of Grandeur?

Recognizing that I exist and that I have an ability to pursue my desires is in no way comparable to believing that the universe was created for my benefit. The theist believes that this is all a big birthday party in their honour whereas the atheist sees some cake and has at it.One position requires the fabrication of a construct and the other requires only observation. The social engineering that results from observing the way things work is bound to be more successful than social designs based on the way we wish that things worked.While consciousness is indeed a phenomenal and grand thing where is the delusion of grandeur in recognizing my abilities?

Well sure but taking a polemic approach really helps to sell books. The fact that Dawkins is a 6/7 on the atheist scale indicates that there is room for new information. This is not so with your hard core theists.The established foundations of scientific knowledge are not the same as the dogma of religion. One is alive and the other is dead. One is a tree and the other is a statue.There is a bit of delusional thinking in everyone I guess though. We all think that we have some kind of importance in the universe or at least start out that way. Most of us finish off that way too. In reality we have some level of relative importance to those around us but it doesn't go much further than that. There is certainly no good reason to think that our importance extends to the universe in general.Isn't pantheism another case of anthropomorphism in action? Attributing consciousness to the universe.

I agree with you that SA is failing to appreciate the fundamental difference between the way that skeptics and theists arrive at their conclusions. That verifiable theories are not the same as unverifiable theories and that one of these two groups is able to justify and support their position. It is a fact that consciousness is an emergent property in the universe. We are certainly not separate from the universe and are built of the same stuff. While I don't know what the 'growing spiritually' part means, I don't really see anything wrong with saying that the universe is conscious or sentient.As we go about subdividing everything into discrete bits and making distinctions between things it easy to loose sight of the fact that everything is connected at a fundamental level. So you might say that the earth is not a sentient thing and yet sentience is an emergent property of the earth.I am curious about how QM does impact consciousness. How does this backwards time travel brain maneuver work?

There is that part in buddhism that talks about rebirth and reincarnation and different planes of existence which are not observable. Everything else about it seems pretty sensible.