In my opinion I'd agree with you that science can never disprove the general notion of a God Creator of the universe, because as you rightly say such notions lie outside the purview of science. I also don't think that you'd have much difficulty getting Dawkins (for example) to agree with that proposition. But...
In my honest opinion, for what its worth, the general scientific discoveries over the last 200 years, inasmuch as they have revealed the scale of the universe, the age of the universe, and a reasonable secular explanation for the complexity of life on earth, do make the specific claims of most historic religions look false. There may be a God, but He sure doesn't look like the God of the Old Testament, or the God(s) of any of the other major world religions. To that extent science would tend to push one towards atheism, since I dislike the alternative hazy wishful-thinking kind of "There must be something more than this." cod-spiritualism that many people who have drifted away from specific beliefs cling to. Just my 2cents. Not trying to get into a flame war. More trying to elucidate how at least 1 atheist sees it. What really does make me furious is some religious sects pretending to take *scientific* issue with theories such as evolution when their real conflict with it is *religious*, and I think from what you've posted you may be quite close to me on that one.
Not really. Science also has to make the words such make sense. It's about meaning. And often this meaning is referential to some kind of totality called Nature--with a capital N, no less.