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At church, every christmas they told the story of when jesus was born and the older kids did a little play. Naturally, I thought that jesus was born every year, cause we were celebrating the "birth of christ", not just his birthday.

Lauren

When I was about 3 or 4, I thought God lived on my street a long time ago. I just had this image of a foggy morning by the house 2 houses down from mine with this guy standing in the street in a white robe with a long white beard and hair.

Christian Girl

When I was little, I thought that every person had a "recipe" and that God spent his mixing up people recipes in a big bowl and sending them down to Earth. And example would be that someone might have 3/4 cup of smartness mixed with a teaspoon of meanness and 3 tablespoons of art talent...etc. in their recipe. I was worried that my recipe wasnt very good and asked my mum if I could have a new one.

Ellie

I was afraid to take a shower because my sister told me that when the drain was opened, the devil could crawl up and get me. I was safe taking a bath, since the drain was closed.

Rachel

Because I was told that God was everywhere and watches you all the time, I felt uncomfortable going to the washroom. Sometimes I’d even say out loud, “Don’t look at me now!”

EJ

When I was young I used to believe that there was a huge, white bearded god in the sky who saw everything I did and judged me on my behavior. If I was bad he would torture me forever and if I was good I would be sitting in church singing forever. I wanted to be his best friend.

Anon

I used to believe that when you are good, god loves you and gives as an exchange to you a better life, I use to believe that u shouldn't judge people, that u should treat everyone as equal, because the only one who can judge them and say what is wrong and what is right is god. I still believe these things, i still believe in the innocents i have and i wish everyone could think with this way..

Anon

I used to think God would be angry with me for not believing in him and when I remember i'd whisper that I was sorry.

Anon

When I was 7-8, I knew I was an exceptionally good kid, living in the Bible belt where church/religion was a prominent piece of our culture. I remember going entire days without sinning (as clearly there was no sin in being self absorbed). So the real question, and what I was really aiming for, was whether the book of the Bible that would be named after me should be called the "Book of Cindy" or the "Book of Cynthia?"

Anon

I used to believe that I could kill the devil by pounding nails into the ground in my back yard. Needless to say, it did not work . If it did, my hubby would be out of a job (he is a pastor!!!)

Daylene

My wife used to "flip off" the devil by walking around with her middle fingers pointed towards the ground. She thought that would keep him in hell.

The exorcist's hubby

As a small child (four or five?), I read the Bible story about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the burning fiery furnace. This scared holy hell out of me because I absolutely believed that if I did something bad my parents would throw me into our furnace at home. I remember waking up at night crying about this and completely befuddling my poor folks.

Laura W.

Note the following qoutation based on me seeing pictures of angels on clouds "...God could not live on the clouds because a plane would have hit him by now..."

A believer

As a kid, I'd heard (somewhere) that if you looked through a hole in the handle of a key, with one eye closed, you'd see the devil. The entire next day at school I tormented a friend whom I knew was highly religious, that he could see Satan if he wanted to. Finally, walking home through our neighborhood, I dared him to look. The moment he looked through the key hole, an old man that lived across the street peeked out his window, and the kid screamed, and ran home. He never spoke to me again, but for fun, I used to hold that key up in front of him at school, and he'd run the opposite direction. None of the other kids could figure out why someone would be so scared of a key. LOL!!

Zac C.

when i was younger i got the gist that heaven was above the earth, in the clouds. i also believed that god was the same size as, and looked just like, a real man. i once spent a 4 hour flight to spain looking for him in the clouds - before finally deciding that he must be invisible! i was quite disappointed though - i was looking forward to seeing the angels in heaven!

sceptical, UK

When I was little my brother told me that when you rub your hand across the carpet real fast, the heat you feel is the devil trying to come up and get you.

Amanda

I don't know why, but some how I associated the visual image of colonel sanders of KFC as the face of God. Whenever I pictured God I pictured the restaurant's icon. I didn't realize this until I was about thirteen....

Brigitte

When I was in 4th grade me and a group of friends thought that the devil was trying to take over our school (I have never been to church) so everyday we wore crosses and at lunch we would investigate the school and anywhere we thought that the devil would try to get us we would sit down by the place and pray.

Phaty Matty

When I was a kid, my grandma had a picture of some byzantine mosaic displaying a very austere version of God. The title of the picture was "Pancreatore", that means "The Creator Of All Things" in italian. I used to believe that Pancreatore was a sort of vice-God who worked for Him when God had to punish or scold someone.

Marta

In Sunday School we were taught that The Lord was always with you. This made me very uncomfortable when I was using the bathroom and I took the fastest showers you ever saw.

I don't believe in God now but I still don't like to dawdle in the shower.

Whiz Kid