Religious Science or Scientific Religion?

I too have pondered this great (and presently unanswerable) question that you pose here, and would like to suggest a possibility that has recently intrigued me...

In no way am i trying to suggest that I have found the answer, or that i'm the first person to have this thought, or even that i will have this same idea a week from now, but here it goes...

perhaps in this reality, in this universe, ALL is consciousness. Everything. Perhaps consciousness (a vague term, i realize) is that fundamental unit of existence, that grand unified theory, from which all things are built.

That being said, perhaps all on this consciousness is connected, similarly to Jungs collective conscious idea, but that there are some points that have been constructed to tap into this consciousness at a higher level than others (EG the human brain).
SO while all things, all rocks, clouds, and ants are still very much connected to the web of consciousness, our human brains have a slightly better reception to it than they.
Kind of like the internet. We're running on 4G servers, and something like chimpanzee is still on dialup... this wireless connection that we have is perhaps what turns our bodies into living beings, connecting them to that Web, and it is only that web that gives us that faculties that allow to to metacognize and perform other abstract thoughts.

im still kinda of tinkering with this idea, so id like to hear what other people think of it?
peace

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” -Albert Einstein

Looking back, I should have been more clear about the fact that I was not placing any kind of judgement on the fact that I think that humans have a more developed concentration of consciousness, because, as you said, its not the spiders who are destroying this planet (which i also find to be a conscious living entity)... Its us.
We, unlike many other life-forms, have begun living with a great dependance on our egos, which has lead us to great accomplishments, and even greater atrocities. This ego acts to create an illusion of separation from the "web" that others may not experience, and so I very much agree that there is an incredible amount of wisdom that can be learned from even the smallest of insects.

It is undeniable though, the that curiosity of the human mind, and our ability to create mental schemas, abstract concepts, and metaphysical thoughts has in some ways set us apart from others (as can be seen by our veracious appetite for discovery and invention).

By no means however, would I ever try and place humans at a superior level of value from even the smallest ant, for to do so would be to forget that (as you said) we are not the weaver of the great web, but merely a strand in it.

If one were to view the earth however, as a live being (which I very much think that it is) , then what i meant to say above is that maybe humans are similar to neurons from its brain, as it is our current function to perceive and classify what we encounter (among other things). Currently however, we've been acting more like a tumor, but that is besides the point.

Drawing from the wisdom that is present in all of nature, it is clear that all species have a niche, and most of them know what it is.
Do we?

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” -Albert Einstein

I hear ya man, its tough to evaluate and validate subjective evidence with the scientific method and sometimes you just cant. I cannot believe that my fellow human beings are always deluding themselves because what they see in there minds eye cannot be seen with a microscope, telescope, or any other type of scope or gram, counter, meter, and etc.