Tommy McCumber didn’t believe in God. He had spent most of his teenage years as a committed atheist.

Religion, in McCumber's mind, was nothing more than a societal coping mechanism — comforting to some, but ultimately baseless.

Yet, just one year after arriving on campus, McCumber made a life-altering decision: He joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

A current sophomore majoring in political science, McCumber had no intentions of growing closer to God during his time in higher education.

“I didn’t come here for religion,” said McCumber. “I came here because my grandpa offered to pay for college, and Brigham Young University-Idaho made sense. It was affordable, conservative, and close to home in Washington. That was it.”

What started as a practical decision to attend college unexpectedly became a catalyst for spiritual transformation.

A philosophical path to atheism

McCumber grew up in a loosely religious household. His early exposure to faith came through a non-denominational Christian preschool in California, but after his family moved to Washington when he was eight, they stopped attending church altogether.

By age 11, McCumber was deep in philosophical waters.

“I started watching debates on YouTube — Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens," McCumber said. "They made a strong case that there wasn’t sufficient reason to believe in God. And I believed that we should only believe things we can know are true.”

Through these thinkers, McCumber adopted atheism, holding the view that the world would be better off without religion altogether. That belief would hold for years, but cracks began to form — not from emotion or tragedy, but from intellectual tension.

Wrestling with morality and meaning

In his later teens, there were questions. For the first time, McCumber began to take a skeptical glance at atheism. While some might abandon the idea of atheism because of feelings, McCumber questioned it because it contradicted objective morality.

“I couldn’t shake the feeling that some things, like slavery, were truly evil,” McCumber said. “But moral subjectivism can’t explain that. If everyone once believed slavery was okay, how can it be objectively wrong?”

McCumber's desire to make sense of morality led him to study deism and classical philosophy. Thinkers like Descartes helped him see the flaws in a strictly material worldview. But even deism, he said, didn’t provide a solid foundation.

"A distant God might explain existence, but not morality," McCumber said. "Eventually, it made more sense to believe in a personal God, one who actually cares about what’s right and wrong.”

A shift begins

McCumber's intellectual journey laid the groundwork, but the shift to real belief came when his grandfather, a non-member, offered to pay for college. Of all the schools his grandfather could’ve chosen, he picked BYUI.

To enroll, McCumber needed an ecclesiastical endorsement. That meant visiting a local bishop—something he’d never done. He dressed up, answered the questions honestly and left with the endorsement. On the way out, he ran into two sister missionaries.

“They were really nice, and the bishop was still right there, so I didn’t want to say no," McCumber said. "I figured it would look good if I agreed to meet with them."

What began as a polite gesture turned into something much more. Over the next two months, McCumber met regularly with the missionaries. At first, he was reluctant to even say he believed in God, even though, privately, he had already concluded it made more sense to believe than not.

Eventually, he admitted it—first to the missionaries, then to himself.

A testimony of Christ and eternal families

Even after believing in God, MCumber didn’t jump into religion right away. He explored multiple faith traditions: Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism. Each had its appeals, but none felt complete.

“I was still really skeptical of Christ,” McCumber said. “It seemed like too big of a leap from where I was.”

That changed one night while reading the book of John in the New Testament.

“I couldn’t stop reading," McCumber said. "I don’t even remember exactly where in the chapter it happened, but I felt the Holy Ghost so strongly. I asked in prayer if it was Him, and I knew it was.”

Reading those scriptures served as the moment that confirmed Christ’s reality for McCumber, but the question of which church was true remained. What convinced him? A prayer about eternal marriage.

“I prayed about the doctrine of eternal marriage, and I felt the Spirit confirm that it was true,” McCumber said. “And if that’s true, then the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has to be true because no one else teaches it.”

That spiritual experience gave McCumber the clarity he needed.

He was baptized soon after.

Life since baptism

A year has passed since McCumber joined the Church. He attends church, has visited the temple multiple times and now reads the Book of Mormon almost every night — often over the phone with his girlfriend, who’s currently serving a service mission in Rexburg, Idaho.

“She’s the biggest blessing that’s come from all of this,” McCumber said.

McCumber also notes a major difference in how he handles adversity.

“Before, if I was doing poorly in school or feeling uncertain about life, I’d just be lost in it," McCumber said. "Now, I have a foundation. I know who I am, and I know I’m not defined by my struggles.”

Advice to skeptics

For those who struggle with faith, McCumber offers simple but sincere advice.

“Read your scriptures and pray. Every night. For a month," McCumber said. "Then talk to someone about what you’re feeling.”

And for those who doubt organized religion, he said, “Be skeptical but don’t be cynical. People have believed in God and religion for thousands of years, and not because they were stupid. Give it a fair look.”

McCumber's journey from atheism to faith wasn’t a dramatic epiphany — it was a slow, deliberate search for truth.

“It wasn’t emotion that brought me here. It was reason. But now that I’m here, I’ve found both.”