Since I was an atheist for many years and came to believe in God through my studies in science, it frustrated me to see students and parents who viewed faith and science as enemies.

Clayton frames his personal intellectual journey—from atheism to belief—as mediated by scientific study rather than opposed to it. The quote argues that the perceived conflict between faith and science is often cultural or pedagogical, not necessary or inherent. His frustration targets a false dichotomy that, in his view, harms students by forcing them to choose between two domains that can be integrated: empirical investigation and metaphysical or theological commitment. Implicitly, he positions his own experience as evidence that scientific literacy can coexist with, and even motivate, religious belief, and he critiques educational environments that present science as corrosive to faith or faith as anti-intellectual.