characters

I was told that "God made everybody". I would sit in church with my family on Sundays and get a vivid mental image of God standing in my kitchen with a frying pan on the stove... getting ready to "make people". I knew the first ingredient would have to be a pat of butter, so the people wouldn't stick to the pan... but could never quite figure out any of the other ingredients He would use to make us.

vanillabean

When I was young, I was fond of using "I swear to God", as it was commonly used at school. Then my parents told me that this was "using the Lord's name in vain" and that this was very bad. Having been told how powerful God was by my friends at school (I didn't go to church, but they did), I refrained from even THINKING the words "I swear to God", because I was terrified he was going to smite me. This carried on for a couple of years, until I finally realized that the other kids had continued saying it and God didn't fry them.

Lindsay

I thought god was a shrinky-dink butterfly for about a year or two when I was a kid. I immigrated to Israel from Russia when I was six and to learn the language I was sent to a religious day camp. The only word I picked up (probably because it was repeated to often) was god, and then we made shrinky-dinks. The two got tangled up in my mind because my parents had never even mentioned god to me before and it was the hardest concept to grasp when you're six years old and don't speak the language you're being preached to in. The ordeal I went through when I lost said shrinky-dink butterfly was the only crisis of faith I've ever had and I've since been enjoying a decidedly god-free life.

Mary

My grandfather died when I was 7. When we went to the cemetary, I noticed all these graves that said 'INRI' on them. Since I wasn't ever raised religiously, I figured that Inri was just the last name of some really big, important family whose members were all buried in that cemetary. Then my Catholic friend told me differently.

heron

once I heard my dad say "God dammit!" and this lead me to think God and Dammit were actual people. So when I'd go to sleep I'd imagine them just talking ("hey God!" "what, Dammit?") and maybe building a person or two. also, I imagined God as looking like a friend of my parents'.

Tory

i used to think that god or someone was sending me secret messages through the trees. the way it worked was i'd look at various trees' branches and find "letters" hidden in the tangle of branches and leaves that would spell out a message. sometimes the messages were just regular greetings, or comments about things i had done, but sometimes they predicted stuff that would happen in the future. once i got really scared when i thought i saw "beth will die," because she was my babysitter & she was awesome. but beth was ok....

i'm an athiest now.

I used to picture God as George Washington.

Sioux

I used to think that when I went to church and everyone said "Thanks be to god." that everyone was saying "Thanks, Beeta God." I thought that "Beeta God" was the priest, who was pretending to be God, and was crazy, so everyone was just humoring him.

Ben

When I went to church I used to think that the priest was God. I used to always say, "Mommy look there's God!"

Karen

I used to picture God as wearing a robe and headdress like a Shiek.

Will

I used to trick my sister, Linda, into believing that if I pressed my bellybutton with my finger, while making a "buzzzzzz" sound, that I turned into the Devil. This tactic scared her stiff for about 10 years. I got an uninhibited, crazed look on my face and probably bared my teeth. I never laughed while I was doing it so she never really knew I was kidding. I only did it spur of the moment and when the two of us were alone. I'm a year and a half younger than her and felt amply justified in doing this as sometimes she had the audacity to call me a yellow-bellied-sap-sucker.

Patti

Being Catholic, my family was pretty excited when the Pope visited Canada the year I turned 4. Our parish priest was a pretty old, white-haired guy, and sometime after the Pope's visit I asked my mother, "When will Fr. G become Pope?" I somehow had gotten the idea that all a priest had to do to become Pope was live long enough, and then they all took turns or something.

My mother thought it was pretty funny. I found out from her years later that apparently Fr. G had a bit of a reputation as a tippler.

Kate

My older cousin and I were in my bedroom one day and it was just around the time I had been taught the concept of God. I asked her if God was really *everywhere*, and she said, "yes, he's even in this room!" I got really concerened and asked her where exactly in the room he was, and she told me he was sitting in my lap.

I was hysterical for hours after that.

Matt

when i was little i used to believe that the devil would come from under my floor boards and take me to hell with him. so i slept in the middle of the bed so it would be harder for him to reach me.

paisley

My uncle, the youngest of 5, grew up in a very Irish Catholic family. He was about 3 when he first really noticed Jesus on the cross. He studied it and then asked, "Who got to him?"

Elizabeth Thomas

When I was little, I was ill a lot of the time. One Sunday I ended up staying home from church with my Father while the rest of my family went to church and Sunday school. When they all got back, I asked my sister what they all talked about in Sunday school since the classes all mirrored each other as far as themes and particular section of the Bible discussed. My sister told me that she learned that "Adam Muneve" was the first man. Astounded I asked my mother " Is it true that 'Adam Muneve' was the first man?" She stared at me strangely and slowly said "Well...Yes." It wasn't until I got older and could read my own Bible myself by 2nd grade that Adam did NOT have a last name like we all did!

Sheila

I used believe that God took your eyes out and looked at your entire life and he would give you 15 strikes if you do 15 bad things in your life you go to hell.

Anon

Once when I was little, my mother, who was raised religiously, was driving with me in the backseat. It was sunset, and she had just recently decided to try and implement religion into my life. So she's driving and she says, "Wow, look at the beautful sky God has given us to enjoy today". Without skipping a beat, I replied "Did she paint it with crayons?"
To this day, I believe God must be a woman, and that experience was also the end of organized religion in my life.

Agnostic

When I was a little girl my mother told me not to whistle because it would make the Blessed Mother cry. I was raised very Catholic and believed this whole-heartedly. I wonder where she got that though, she probably just didn't want to hear my bad whistling.

Anon