afterlife

I used to believe that my entire family would die at the same time, and that heaven was this giant staircase where everyone sat around naked forever.

Addie

I always thought that heaven was just really high in the sky and if you took a really tall ladder you could get there. I never understood why people never did that.

Kayla

When I was about 9, my family moved. In our new home, we went to a church that focused much more strongly on the "end times" than our old church did. I was taught that when Jesus Christ returned to judge all men (the Rapture), the Christians would be taken up "into the air" (like the Bible says) in their own physical bodies instead of having to die first. I thought that if I was inside a building or underground at the time, I could not go to Heaven, because my body would not go through the material overhead and fly up into the air with God. I used to pray, terrified, every night for God to double-check to make sure I was outside before He started the end of the world.

speedwell

I used to believe that in order to gain access to heaven, you had to read a book that included everything you had ever done, heard, seen, thought, experienced, etc. The book was several stories high, and the size of a trampoline, and you had to climb onto it to read.

wisdm of dave

For some reason I have yet to figure out, when I was a kid I decided that a persons "soul" looked like a cane and it was dead centre in the middle of our bodies and that when we died it would come out our mouth and float up to the sky. I believed that when it got to heaven it would morph into your ideal body (like it would be your body.. but no health problems or sickness, and it would look like your body would have if you were in peak condition..)

I actually believed this into my early teens....

Floating Canes

I used to believe that sunbeams that you could see coming down to earth were the souls of people who had just passed going up to heaven

jen

I used to believe that when you went to Heaven, there was a little machine with pictures of animals on it, with buttons next to each animal. Then you would press the button of the animal you wanted to be. Then when you died as the animal, you would be in Heaven permanently. I told my dad this at age six and received, "That's reincarnation, we don't believe in that." I responded with,"... ok!" Then I pretty much forgot about it. :P

Tommy

I used to picture a person's soul as a large kidney-shaped object, wrapped up in cloth like a mummy. I though that when you sinned, you would get a dirt spot on it until you confessed, when it would be white again.

QuidditchLover

When I was about 8, I thought everytime I opened my dresser drawers there was the chance there might be a pair of red hands inside. If there were red hands inside, I would automatically be sent to hell. I faced eternal damnation everytime I had to change my clothes.

And all this time my mom thought I just had a favorite shirt.

I used to believe two things:
1. That our lives were being filmed and when we died we got to watch our lives in heaven and be able to hear what any one in our film was thinking.

2. That our life was a baby's dream and when the baby woke up we died.

Michelle

I used to believe that out in space there was a giant zipper that only God could unzip and behind that was heaven.

Samantha

In my church, if you looked up at the lights for a while you would start to see weird shadows once your eyes became dazed by the lights. I was convinced these were the people of the afterlife and they were trying to contact my seven year old mind

Anon

In first grade, a few of my friends and I dug a huge hole in the play structures sand. We were convinced that if we dug down deep enough, we would reach hell. I don't know WHY we wanted to find hell, but we were very discouraged by the third day and eventually gave up. I didn't realize until several years later that hell wasn't exactly reachable from our school...

Kristen

Whe I was around 6 years old our teacher explained to us the orgin of Good Friday on the week that it was occuring. I took the story very literally and got it into my head that every year on Good Friday the world would end and start all over again. I was a shy kid and too afraid to ask any questions so I just sat there completely freaked out waiting for the world to end.

thatchubbykid

There used to be a laboratory down the road from where we lived. Through the windows you could see people in white overals using gleaming white equipment. I don't know what they did in there but simply because everything was white I believed that it must be heaven.

Anon

Having been taught that every earthly deed,good or bad, was recorded in a book by God, I was concerned for the angel who sat writing them in by pencil day after day. When computers became a fact of life my vision of the Book of Life changed dramatically and I knew that Gods computer was far superior to my one.

Isabella

raised jehovah's witness, i thought "paradise on earth" was under construction. when it was finished, my mom and dad and i could walk to it and stay there happily all day and then come back at sunset. i lost all interest when i learned it would be a permanent thing.

optional

When I was little, I heard people mention asking God a question after they died and decided I had alot of questions, and worried incessantly about forgetting them when I woke up. Thus I determined I wanted to be buried with a piece of paper with my questions written on it. Then I just worried about forgetting about the paper, but figured with all eternity to go through, I'd eventually stick my hand in my pocket and wonder what it was.

Anon

When I was young, I used to believe that when you died, your spirit crawled out your mouth and ran away to an unborn baby.

Anon

As a child I believed that when we went to heaven God would turn us into a dog. My sister however shattered this dream and told me that He wouldn't and so I spent the rest of that day crying behind the living room chair. Now, at 20, I'm a devout atheist. Coincidence?

The Michelle