Reading (Audiobook) - The Universe in a Nutshell - Stephen Hawking

With the end of The Invisible Gorilla, I'm moving The Universe in a Nutshell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Universe_in_a_Nutshell) by Stephen Hawking over to my Ipod.  I have a work trip up to Niagara Falls (about 3 hours each way) which should about finish that book.

I've recently listened to The Grand Design, also by Hawking, and really liked it.  I want to re-read A Brief History of Time and the newer update A Briefer History of Time.  These books all seem to be relatively short on Audio, so I might have a chance to re-listen to all 3 of them.

I find cosmology and the origins of the universe incredibly compelling and seem to understand the physics each time I run through the books, though I'm not necessarily sure I'd retain all the details.

I find these, along with Dawkins The God Delusion to set a framework for understanding the limits of science and generally start the cognitive dance regarding science and religion.

I can't say that I find either Dawkins' contention that religion is a fools errand (and ultimately dangerous), or Hawking's contention that the universe would unfold more or less within the bounds of understood physics as long as there exists gravity (i.e. the start, end and evolution of the universe are all a function of gravitational forces) to be arguments for or against religion.

Dawkins has taken the anti-religious or pro-atheist stance to a degree that he seems to be using the same underlying non-scientific basis for stating there is no God that he opposes from the "there is God" camp.  I certainly understand and support his thesis that there is no fixed limit at which science "ends" and religion "takes over" as he faults Gould for creating, but it seems to me that regardless of how far back toward the origin of the universe (or even to pre-universe starting conditions or cycles) it is impossible to refute somebody who says "Yeah, that's right - God made it that way".  I agree with both Dawkins and Hawking that that particular explanation or other invocations of God do not add to the current or potential explanatory power of science over any observed events, but the inability to prove the null ("God doesn't exist") is certainly a limit on how explicitly science can comment on the existence of God.

Philosophically I'd agree that there is a shortage of "proof" for God's existence coming out of organized religion, but I suspect the concept of Faith limits the requirement of Religion to speculate in this area.