Devin Rose
Devin Rose is a software engineer and former Atheist. This is his story from Atheist to Baptist to Catholic.
I believe and profess all that the Holy Catholic Church teaches and proclaims to be revealed by God.
But it was not always so. I grew up secularly. My mother was brought up in a particularly legalistic branch of the churches of Christ denomination, and my father, in the Episcopal Church. But the only church I remember going to as a child was a Unitarian Universalist one, and we went there for just a short time. The sole Unitarian sermon I recall having to sit through included a joke about (then Vice President) Dan Quayle that got big laughs from the congregation. I was taught at home and at school that humans evolved without purpose from primordial ooze, so unsurprisingly, when I became old enough to reason about such things, I proudly declared that I did not believe in God.
In high school, I came to base the perception of my own worth as a person on what others thought of me. It was an unstable foundation to be sure, but so long as everyone thought well of me and I had nothing to be humiliated about, all was well. Eventually however, this way of thinking caught up with me, and I reached a point where I could not hide any longer from it.
That point came during my sophomore year in college. On the outside, my life was really great: I made good grades in school and had a nice girlfriend, a family who loved me, and lots of friends. But on the inside, I was beginning to be eaten alive by anxiety. It started out small and slowly got worse. I began getting nervous in social situations like going to restaurants, to the movies, and eventually, just being in class for school. My stomach would churn, and I would fear having to run out of the classroom, embarrassing myself in front of everyone.
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