Accommodating religion: conscience or cowardice?

There's much discussion in the atheism sphere lately over accommodation, the idea that atheism, science, or both should take care to not contest religious claims lest offended believers be driven even further into the opposing camp. The details, of course, vary among the many sub-discussions; some accommodationists take the tack "Yes, we know religion is in the wrong, but let's not tell them that", while others hold forth that science does not require atheism and there simply isn't any conflict between science and religion.

A particular recent point of contention: Unscientific America, a book by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum that decries American apathy and antagonism toward science (can't argue with that!) but, unfortunately, lays much of the blame on scientists and "New Atheists" who speak their minds without consideration of Americans' religious sensibilities. For a full overview, head to this post by scientist and outspoken atheist, PZ Myers, who receives a particularly harsh lashing by Mooney and Kirshenbaum. Follow the links therein and you'll get all sides of the story, including back-and-forth rebuttals and third-party observations.

It truly is hard to warm up to the accommodationist perspective. Don't take PZ's insightful comments alone; listen to Mooney and Kirshenbaum plead their case. In Defenders of the Faith: Scientists who blast religion are hurting their own cause, they demonstrate that they'll paint out-of-context pictures to favor a point. Like this comment intended to shock the moderates:

The New Atheist science blogger PZ Myers, for instance, has publicly desecrated a consecrated communion wafer, presumably taken from a Catholic mass, and put a picture of it, pierced by a rusty nail and thrown in the trash, on the Internet.

Setting aside the meaningfulness of "desecrated" as a concept, that claim is true – and completely misleading, thanks to a careful excising of the event from context. You'd think from the above that PZ went out of his way to anger Catholics just out of his hatred for religion. Wrong; he (like nearly all atheists, "New" or not) doesn't go out of his way to "desecrate" anything. The "cracker controversy" was specifically a response not to communion itself, but to a bizarre, inane, and frightening incident in which a student accepted a wafer without eating it – and received a national outpouring of outrage from believers, including calls for expulsion from school, death threats, and accusations of "hate crime". (I would like to ask Mooney and Kirshenbaum: 1) Why did you misleadingly leave all context out of your comment on the cracker incident?; and 2) Out of curiosity, if you didn't join PZ in decrying the demented medieval reaction of some Catholics toward a student who failed to eat his wafer, why didn't you?)

The authors continue the Newsweek article with a reminder of how popular religion is ("64 percent of Americans would hold on to a cherished religious belief even if science had disproved it"!) , then move on to a central argument: Science and religion aren't opposed, as made evident by strong Christians who are also able scientists, like Francis Collins. Yet there's a flaw there, which they manage to point out themselves:

...we find many sophisticated believers who've made a peace between their belief and the findings of modern science. 

Yes: peace between religion and the findings of modern science. But the findings of science are not science. Science is how you got those findings. It's a really important distinction.

It's utterly trivial to say "I believe that the citric-acid cycle is an important component of aerobic cellular respiration. Also, I believe that my Atlantean spirit guardian guides my lottery picks." That's the trivial sense in which Collins combines science and religion. But when you say "I believe the Atlantean theta-spirits created the citric-acid cycle in mitochondria", that's rejecting science and claiming a "finding" not supported by its methods. That's what Collins does when he claims existence of a Christian God: he makes a claim that rejects the methods of science. Where it counts – claims about the natural world – he does not combine science and religion. Nobody does.

The very next sentence of the Newsweek article is also bizarre, in that it contradicts that claim that was just made about science/religion integration:

It's not just Collins; consider the words of the Dalai Lama: "If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change."

A smart comment. In fact, it's what we atheists are saying all the time! When science and religion make conflicting claims about the natural world, they don't co-exist, they don't strike a deal, they don't flip a coin; rather, science wins. Always. 

How in the world you spin "science always trumps opposing religious claims" to mean "science and religion get along fine!", I don't understand. 

If you're interested in more, the authors have much to say in PZ Myers vs. Unscientific America: Part III and its previous installments linked therein. You'll find repeated accommodationist pleas that we not offend people with straight talk. There's little or no rebuttal of the substance of "New Atheist" talk – Mooney and Kirshenbaum claim to be irreligious themselves – just anguish over its tone. 

I have nothing bright to add; PZ and others have made all the good rebuttals already. In fact, I have to turn to someone else to better say the one thought that is in my mind: 

Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.

This is the crux, the spot where accommodationists part ways with the "New Atheists". The former ask that we handle religion in the light of what's safe, politic, and popular. The latter are concerned first with what's right. To put it bluntly in a manner that Mooney and Kirshenbaum won't appreciate, it's the way of cowardice, expediency, and vanity, versus the way of conscience. 

Hey, who came up with that crazy quote, anyway? Just a guy named Martin Luther King Jr. A guy who most decidedly did not mumble polite nothings to avoid upsetting the masses.

I'd love to hear the accommodationists explain how Martin Luther King Jr went about it all wrong. Anyone?