Monica Dux: As hard as I tried, god NEVER felt real to me.

[@MG-ot2yr]

Same here, even as a child, I never bought into it. Also raised Catholic, I can remember asking questions and getting non-answers like "god works in mysterious ways" or "you have to have faith". Some people claim to have some connection with god, and you hear this across many faiths, but there's actually neuroscience behind the "religious experience", and I think some of us just aren't wired for it.

[@timothymulholland7905]

I was raised in an intensely religious environment through college and went through all the motions, but God remained hidden throughout. I just gave up.

[@KPenceable]

Also, you don't need a god belief, life is just as beautiful without it. God belief or not, this world and our life is profoundly beautiful. You don't need to feel pressure to believe, it's probably better to try to remove the belief in my opinion, considering you came from an intensely religious environment, and that can be very toxic I think.

[@KPenceable]

@Mr 2ndclasscitizen how do you know? Faith?

[@andrewkayla7994]

She's great. Great interview Tim 👍

[@richardwilliams473]

If God is for real, HE,SHE,or IT would show himself, herself, or itself to all of us that are living NOW and not just to the people living during the Biblical times!!!

[@renny3816]

FACTS. People just love to blindly believe things. The Muslims say they never hear Allah’s voice, but they still pray to him and believe him, even though nobody seen this character, it’s pathetic.

[@richardwilliams473]

@@renny3816 Thanks for your support. I usually get hate comments from the Bible believers

[@rainbowkrampus]

The comment about your deconversion being as much a part of your identity as anything else really struck a chord with me. I can't say I ever had any strong feelings about my former belief when I was in it. It wasn't really traumatic to just walk away from it like I did. But in the last few years (around a decade after leaving religion) I've begun to develop what I guess I'd call antitheist positions. For a long time I just didn't care about religion. Certain events caused me to reevaluate this. I've spent the last few years listening to stories just like Monica's from believers and non-believers. If I've ever "felt the fire" it's now and it's in advocating against religious belief. But I keep asking myself, "Why?" Why this? Why now? Why did it take me so long to get here? I think in a way I'm still in the process of deconverting. Most of my family are religious. My society is definitely still religious. I'm lucky in that this hasn't had any major negative connotations for me. But there are clearly still some unresolved issues here. I'll have to really think about what it means to me to carry around your deconversion as a part of your identity. Anyway, great video. When I first found this channel, I'll admit I kinda wasn't sure why anyone would pursue a project like this. I'm glad to have been shown the error of my ways.

[@ziploc2000]

Very interesting interview, I really enjoyed this guest. I used to have several Irish friends who were officially Catholic, but privately told me they only attend mass when their parents were there, to keep them happy. It's all a pretense, they know it, and they aren't raising their kids Catholic. I'm much the same, attended church and sang in the choir to keep my mum happy, but dropped it all as soon as I could. My kids don't even know what a church is. We might be raising the generation that rejects religion, or our kids will, but I feel it's coming and long overdue. Clearly a large proportion of people who might tick a religion on a census don't actively follow that religion. I drove past Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Mormon and Jehovah's Witnesses churches today. Maybe in 50 years they will have one building to share between them (that offers Bingo on Friday evenings).

[@timisa58]

Evangelical Christians may not play the guilt-trip card 'as much' as catholics, but they certainly love to remind you that you are not good enough alone or w/o god. So, many of them diminish the idea of self-efficiency or self-empowerment.

[@lilafeldman8630]

It's a different type of religious guilt

[@KELLY-maybeWeCudBeGirlfriends]

Another great video. Thank you dear Tim Mills. Thank you Monica Dux for telling your story. It was interesting. And I learned things about the catholic religion & history that I did not know or realize. Very interesting. Thank you again, both of you ❤❤

[@sarahbastion8244]

I related to this so much that im literally crying. I feel like i've woken up from a dream.

[@trishayamada807]

Raised a Catholic but I was never a Catholic. I never believed. I found confession the most stressful. I’d lie in confession so I could have a sin to confess. I was making up sins to confess! So stupid. I think of every moment of all the days I was stuck in church as truly wasted time.

[@atheistechoes9594]

My whole crappy childhood was wasted on god and the rest of it will more than likely be wasted on my grandmother cause her kids cant bother to do anything for her

[@trishayamada807]

@@atheistechoes9594 I’m so sorry. I’m taking care of my mother and my nana. My mom won’t get medical care because she wants to be with Jesus. It’s so heartbreaking to me.

[@atheistechoes9594]

@@trishayamada807 that's awful i.hope you can talk her into seeing a doctor

[@rainbowkrampus]

​@@trishayamada807 I assume you've already tried seeing if there was anyone at her church or in her community who might be able to convince her? I don't know what I'd do in that situation, I'm sorry you have to deal with that.

[@stefanheinzmann7319]

"I’d lie in confession so I could have a sin to confess." Haha, same with me! At the end, I thought about all those rituals, that obviously the church was about making people fake all of it. To fake it was more acceptable than being honest about it. That ended up being a big factor in my losing faith.

[@dakrontu]

Great interview. Very informative. Much food for thought.

[@marielevakova4557]

I found your channel few months ago and came to like your interviews very much. But this one was even more relatable than others, since I am an ex-Catholic too, and Monica identifies and articulates some of the issues catholicism so well that I had to laugh a couple of times. :-) I have never had so big fear of hell, for example. Evolution has never been questioned in my family either. However, the duty to go to confession on regular basis felt like a torture of hell already at this world. I am a heavy introvert who does not share private stuff with just anyone, and especially does not want to do that with some elderly unempathic priest. It became even worse after one priest told us during religious education when I was roughly 12 years old, that he sometimes refuses to give an absolution in the confession (i.e. the confession is not valid), if he feels like the sinner does not display the pity clearly enough. Since then I would always spend at least 30 minutes before confession by talking to myself how terrible I am and that I betrayed Jesus and that I am very very sorry for all my sins, so that I would enter the "confession booth" almost in tears. I agree that catholicism is very peculiar. "We" don't read the actual Bible so much. Our main authority is the Catechism, but we tend to believe even more in various revelations of Mary in Fatima, Medjugorje etc., follow teachings of celibate men about sex and dig out dead bodies of saints out of their graves to cut them into pieces and display in churches. Just to give a couple of examples...

[@NeedSomeNuance]

I’ve watched a lot of your videos and I think this is one of your best 👍🏻

[@HarmonicAtheist]

Thank you very much! I really appreciate that.

[@NeedSomeNuance]

@@HarmonicAtheist yeah dude. I’m very much in your camp of deconverted evangelical and I thought y’all did such a great job of discussing the cultural differences between catholic and Protestants and how it’s okay to admit that it’s part of your past and just kinda own it

[@Simon.the.Likeable]

The Age is a Nine Entertainment newspaper. We have a newspaper duopoly in Australia (with the exception of Stokes' West Australian.) Our print media sucks big time here.

[@JosephNordenbrockartistraction]

I'm a male feminist from the 70s and was raised by a great well educated mom. All my brothers and sisters are too. A feminist is not all I am though. It just doesn't come up in conversation when I introduce myself. My dad was a great husband for her and just a good hard nosed dad towards me. He was WAY too Catholic for my likes.

[@josephmalkon9878]

I believe in a larger order based on love not fear ! Certain beings wrote commandments and stories to keep us slaves in line.

[@spaceghost8995]

Felt banners! Yes that brings back memories of Catholic mass. Same thing in Indiana, just a happy clappy loving Jesus thing. NO talk ever of damnation or Satan.

[@rainbowkrampus]

"Happy clappy Jesus" is much better than "hippy dippy Jesus". I am stealing it. It's perfect honestly. It can be both sneering and disarming while being a bit broader and encompassing and still convey an underlying sinisterness. It also kinda sounds like Jesus has the clap :P

[@balachandrank4981]

For people who are intelligent and rational Abrahamic God is way too much to digest. For those who haven't come out of the God delution however much they tried, it will be useful to think about the Cause and Effect theory. Cause and Effect are the same. Simply put it, the universe itself is the cause of it. There is no God.

[@totonow6955]

Excellent

[@SHurd-rc2go]

Superb interview. Thank you, both. I think Catholicism lost many younger followers when the truth of sexual abuse came out, and was covered up by the Church. The Magdalene Sisters!!?? So it wasn't just bad male clerics.

[@theogusat7968]

Before I got baptized that is what I was getting wrong, too. But when I looked at my life, it did not have the proof of searching for God, it had only sin and the pride that I am the one looking for Him.

[@theunclejesusshow8260]

A lucky thing to not get Hooked on The Feeling 🧙‍♂️👍

[@fathertime2020]

If you don't believe Jesus is real you ought to come to my neighborhood. Jesus Rodriguez, Jesus Hernandez, Jesus Mendoza............etc.

[@SHurd-rc2go]

I'm in southwestern Mexico. Far fewer babies being named Jesus, Maria, Guadalupe, etc. Maybe it's just here.

[@markrichter2053]

God always felt real for me. I still get a strong sense of awe and wonder. I always had the experiences. It was just the theological bullshit, the fake history, the impossible miracles and the unethical morality that I could never make sense of. Oh, and the social toxicity too.

[@domi202]

for me loosing my faith was an existing doubt always looming, liberating and quite simply... its all a buncha bullshit isn't it..

[@Magik1369]

G-d doesn't feel real when you look outside yourself for He/She/It. That's because the Divine is inside you and is your True Nature. The Divine is way different than portrayed in the Bible. The path of Self Realization will bring you there.

[@dakrontu]

Extrapolating from silly ideas ties people's brains in knots.

[@williamlarochelle6833]

Dux was unable to feel God's presence as a Catholic for the simple reason that he doesn't exist. As a Protestant, Mills thought he felt God's presence in having a "personal relationship with Jesus" but he wasn't and for the same reason.

[@robertellis1281]

Real Love isn't a Feeling ----- God Didn't Create Love He is Love ---- But when one Comes to God , One isn't Just Going to Feel This Love Like We Will in Heaven ---- On this Earth The devil and his army can and does control most people's Souls which are ones ( mind , will and emotions ) And even if a Christian until one totally Surrenders and Goes through Deliverance You Are Not Going to Feel God's Love because Your mind will and emotions control totally or in part by the enemy

[@oliverhug3]

„God is love“. What on earth does that even mean? Love is love, and god is god, in case it exists. Words mean things, and when we play with what they mean, we play with the ability to think properly and clearly. Let words mean what they mean. Theists do not seem to agree on this. Not all of them even believe in a loving God. Let alone a „God is love“ god. Before we can reasonably examine that claim, we first need to have a god to examine to see if it is something that is qualified deserving this label. Since we do not have one to examie, the claim remains just a claim.

[@teddytarp]

Is there anything else that exists that doesn't feel real to you?

[@tombrown7936]

GENESIS 3 - That's Because You're Born In Sin - Spiritually Dead - Totally Depraved - & Seperated From God - - - JOHN 3:3 🙏😇🕊️

[@oliverhug3]

I hope this is meant to be a joke.

[@philipfarnam6013]

@@oliverhug3 Oh, yeah, man...it's written in this ancient book...MUST be true!!!! America 2021 and nearly 1/2 of my fellow citizens believe this nonsense. Amazing.