About Andrew Clapper

The Day I Learned the Ten Commandments

A few weeks after my kindergarten CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) sessions began, our instructors took us into a classroom to teach us the Ten Commandments.  This was the first time we were exposed to a serious, extended lecture style lesson.  Our two instructors also took on a serious demeanor we had not yet seen in them, and so we were all a bit nervous and not quite sure what to expect.

One by one, they went through the Ten Commandments and explained them in terms that five year olds could understand.  It was made very clear to us that we were not just being told a story; it was required of us that we learn them and begin to follow them.

At first, they seemed to make good sense, although I felt as though good people were supposed to do things like honor their mother, and refrain from lying, stealing, and killing.  Why did we need God to tell us to do these things?  And where was the kind and loving God (of the New Testament I think) I had been taught about until this day?

The adults were so serious about what they were doing that I didn’t want to go against what they were saying.  However, the other children in my class had questions for each commandment.  It is hard for me to remember them, but I think some of them resembled questions like “Why do we need someone to teach us how to be good people again?  Our parents already teach us (to be moral)… Why does God need to command us to do things if he is all powerful?”

Their questions resonated with me, and our instructors were at a loss to tackle some of the advanced philosophical questions that were being asked.  I am still a bit amazed by the ability of these children to question their elders like that.  Maybe even five year olds are able to think like an atheist before they are indoctrinated.  I, however, stayed silent.  I was quite impressed by some of the questions that were being asked.

After several questions for each Commandment, and more after all were taught to us, our instructors began to become frustrated.  Eventually, one simply began to insist that we should try to follow the Commandments because God required it of us, and the other instructor followed her lead.  After a stern lecture about how it was alright for us to think about the Commandments, but that we still needed to learn them and follow them, our CCD session moved on to another matter.

I remember thinking that the instructors would probably avoid the topic of the Ten Commandments in the future, because they would face the same barrage of questions and become frustrated again.  I believed it was okay for me to simply ignore that lesson, since although the instructors were supposed to be more knowledgeable than us, they lacked acceptable answers to our very important questions.

The next week we had our next CCD session.  As soon as it began, our instructors verbally quizzed us on what the Ten Commandments were.  This time, they would have no more questions.  They simply wanted us to recite them.  We children obliged them, although at first I still thought that all of us considered it a waste of time.  As we went through this new routine, alarm began to creep into me.  The other children had many questions that the adults did not have satisfactory answers to, and yet we were now simply going along with them.  I grudgingly mumbled the Commandments along with the other kids, filled with anger and resentment towards the adults for forcing us to do something we clearly had demonstrated to them was frivolous.

The weeks went on, and my anger and resentment about the Ten Commandments became directed towards the other children.  I was filled with a sense of betrayal as well.  Why had we abandoned our skeptical stance towards these pointless commands?  Why did the adults simply need to insist on something for us to agree to it?  What was wrong with these kids?  I do not think I ever voiced my thoughts and feelings about the issue to anyone.  I do, however, remember that this same resentment surfaced later when we began to have prayer and doctrine testing done on a regular basis.

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Becoming an Atheist

I first learned the word atheist when I was in the eighth grade of middle school (junior high school). Before one of my classes started, another student randomly asked me, “Are you atheist?” My reply was, “What’s that?” He said, “It means you don’t believe in God. XXX is atheist. I think she’s stupid.” I told him that I wasn’t atheist, and that I was unaware it was possible not to believe in God and that a word existed for such a non-belief. At the same time, I thought to myself, “Good for her. I takes guts to be open about what you believe in like that.”

Three years later, I had taken on this point of view myself. Granted, three years is a long time for a teenager, but not so long in the context of an entire human life in a developed country.

Let me backtrack a bit. When I was sixteen years old, a friend of mine let me borrow his copy of Tao te Ching translated by Stephen Mitchell. At first I read it simply because I was curious, but the apparent pantheistic nature of it immediately appealed to me. It also appeared to provide guidance that was of much higher quality, in my opinion at the time, than the Christian Ten Commandments, New Testament, and other important pillars of Christian doctrine. I soon bought my own copy of the book, and secretly considered myself Taoist for a month or two.

It wasn’t long, however, before my philosophical leanings became more deistic. Soon thereafter, they became a form of naturalism and essentially atheist. I was terrified of being socially ostracized and isolated for thinking this way, and so was a closet non-theist for about four years.

When I was 20, I was taking an SSRI to treat double depression. I strongly believe that one of the several side effects I experienced was SSRI induced mania, along with aggression. In a period of less than six months, I moved out of my parents’ house, strained my relationship with several family members, came out as an atheist to friends and family, and almost got arrested.

I do not recommend coming out to friends and family the way I did. I still suffered from dysthymia, but since I no longer suffered from clinical depression, I gradually stopped taking Zoloft. I was openly atheist from that point on. I did in fact experience the social isolation that I had previously feared. Being an atheist can be a large impediment to the love life of someone looking for female dates in a white, suburban, and mostly Protestant southern state in the United States. I joined one of the larger national atheist organizations with the hope that it would allow me to connect with local atheists. There was indeed a South Carolina division of the organization, but it was based in another part of the state and wasn’t actively having meetings at the time.

After a few years of relative social isolation, I came up with a plan. I would work hard and become a well known scholar, then later I would use my clout to write about atheism and act as an advocate for social change. I would go into philosophy, or possibly evolutionary biology or psychology. I would again take up the cause of atheism like Bertrand Russell did in the United States.

Sound familiar?

Well, since Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens (and others) beat me to it, why not start now? And while I’m at it, why not create an atheist organization that we an all be proud of and that will provide both a national and international voice, as well as social support for local atheists?