Consciousness is an effect of having a brain in a body with senses, of which eyesight is paramount and hearing is second in importance. For those who don’t believe in God and the soul and mind/body dualism, only animals -from insects to humans and all in between- are conscious.
Since God, as imagined and conceived and defined by almost all believers, does not have a brain in a body with senses, since it doesn’t have eyes to see and ears to hear, not only can it not be self-conscious, like humans, it can’t even be conscious, like insects, fish, birds, reptiles, mammals and primates other than homo sapiens -unless one believes in miracles and the supranatural, including the phantasm of mind/body dualism.
To nonbelievers who don’t so believe, the distinct self-consciousness and intelligence of humans is explained by the superiority of the human brain in a body with eyes and ears. Though impossible, obviously, let’s assume the brains of Newton, Einstein, Hume, Aristotle, Proust, Joyce, and other geniuses could exist and live apart from the body and never existed within a body with eyes to see and read and ears to hear and thus to learn and acquire knowledge. If so, they would know nothing, they’d be totally ignorant. Not only would they not be self-conscious, they would not even be conscious, conscious of an external world, like insects and fish and fowl and reptiles and mammals and primates other than humans.
Atheism Simplified 