afterlife

I thought that once you'd die you'd go to heaven if you were good and hell if you were bad, of course, but I thought that if you were an awesomely good person God would let you come back as and animal and help people(discreetly). So I thought my cat was a person brought back to life since she was such a good cat.

Amberjack

My friend use to be terrified that on judgement day all humans would stand in an alphebetical line to meet with God. Since her last name is Harris, she would have to stand in line next to the evil king Herrod from the bible. She still gets nervous when people talk about the end of the world!

Anon

I remember once after my grandparents died (5), My dad was trying to explain to me that they were in my heart, I was told that they went to heaven and there was no possibilty for them to be in two places at once. "They will always be in your heart"
"But they're up there"!!!!!

Anon

When I was little, I believed that when you died, you got to be a priest. The shock I got when I was an altar-server and found out the priests all lived!

Lucie

After hearing the story of Jesus turning the few pieces of fish and bread into thousands, I was convinved this is what people ate in heaven. I hate fish, so for several years I told my mom I didn't want to go to heaven because I would have to eat fish.

china

Being born in a highly religious Catholic family, many of my beliefs and fears were centered in religion. I had great difficuly conceptualizing a 'soul'. I suppose I just went for whatever seemed the closest. It was the heel of a shoe. For many years I'd imagined my soul in the shape of a heel of a shoe living inside my chest. I thought when you died it floated out of your mouth with little white wings on each side of it.

JZ

Once when i was 4, i was playing in the sandbox @ my preschool. I had dug so far that i got to the black part underneath the sand and i thought it was hell so i screamed and ran away.

kryss

When I was young, my great-grandfather died and "went to heaven," according to my mother.

Then, at most a year later, my dog died. My brother was asking my mom if the dog was in heaven. At this point, we were driving past an apartment complex set up on a hill and surrounded by trees. my mom responded, "Yeah, Sheba's in Heaven with Pampi," while gesturing towards the sky, but I thought she was pointing to the apartment complex... and I thought for the longest time that Heaven was in that apartment complex on the hill surrounded by trees. I couldnt' understand why, if they were right there,why they just couldn't come home.

Laura

I used to believe that every time you blinked you took a picture of the scene in front of you and that when you died and went to heaven an angel would take your eyes out of your head and develope all of your "pictures".Then later when you got your pictures back you could have unlimited copies so you could trade with other people in heaven and learn about each other's experiences.

Christina

Someone once told me I could get into heaven by doing "good works". I used to get excited when the papers my teacher handed back to me in class had a "Good Work!" sticker on it. Then, I began to wonder why I sometimes got papers back with an "Awesome!" or "Nice Job!"....

Cybela

I used to believe that when you died you became God for a few seconds until the next person died. Although it was only for a short time, it would feel like forever. And so there is no one God but it is the souls of everyone who is dead looking over and guiding everyone who is still alive, as they get a second to sparkle before moving on to let the next incumbent take the reins in Heaven.

All this sounds very nice but it is genuinely what I believed. As soon as I realised nobody else believed this, during primary school, I stopped believing in God and now have no religion.

Flash Wilson

I used to think that hell was under our carpet, so you can see how scared i was when the carpenter came to change our carpet.

B. Jones

when i was younger i thought that when you died that god made you an angel, he didnt know how to do the colored wash, so he just gave all the angles white clothes to wear.

kaitlin

I used to believe that EVERYTHING went to heaven when it died. I used to picture fluffy clouds taking wrecked cars up to heaven and be scared that they would be too heavy and fall on me!

Anon

When I was a kid, I thought Jerusalem, Bethlehem etc were all suburbs of Heaven. I was absolutely flabbergasted when I found out they were real places on Earth that you could go visit...

Tiffany

An older cousin used to tell us that if we call the number 7777777 on the phone at midnight, it will reach hell directly. We can speak to our deceased relatives.

Lisa

When I was little, I believed that when we fell asleep, we went to heaven and that's where our dreams took place (which would explain why we sometimes see passed loved ones), but when you woke up, you returned to earth.

Janet

Attending a religious school as a young child it was part of the day to read the life of a saint. Their heoric deeds were so far beyond anything I could imagine at a very young age, I made up my mind that even if I were the best possible behaved person all I could ever wind up being was an angel.

We were taught by nuns who were huge towering figures in long black robes and high headpieces covering all trace of any hair. Only their oval faces were visible from this all encompassing habit, and hands. Occasionally an orthpedic black oxford shoe would peek out from the hem of the voluminous garment. It took a very long time before I understood that there were people under the robes, and what's more they were women. In my mind they were a separate species, born to be nuns and nothing else.

Parochial school child

I believed that people ascended into heaven by using a magic umbrella that somehow propelled them up, like Mary Poppins.

Anon

When i was on First Grade, one classmate died and my parents explain me that she goes to Heaven, so i firmly believe she could fallen down above our heads in any minute. Even i wrote a letter to ask her to be carefull on hers flyiings!!!!!

Karla