church

When I was around 11, I was very interested in other religions. I went to Catholic Mass with my friend and was very upset that they had statues in church pray to Saints! It says right in the 10 commandments "Thou shalt have no other gods before me". I was sure that God was angry about their misguided prayers and they would all go to Hell!

me again

manna-the yummy food that God gave to his ppl thats full of nutrients and everything else everyone needs. well...for some reason i thot that it was whale. i thot that huge whales would fall from the sky and ppl would eat it. i didnt know that this wasnt true until LAST SUMMER when my dad told me that the ppl ate manna and QUAIL...i am 16...

Anon

For years I thought that Catholic was pronounced Cath-OLL-ik. I thought that "Cathlic" was something else entirely.
Even today, when I see the word Catholic, my brain goes "Cath-OLL-ik".

I'm not Catholic

I used to believe that spiritual grace was actually a physical thing that a person acquired internally.

I went to Catholic school, grades 1-8, and in my very early years, when the nuns talked about "grace" we acquired through the sacraments, I thought that grace was actually something inside of you. In my mind, grace was grey and foamy and fluffy - very light.

I never wondered why I couldn't feel it inside - I just assumed it was there after I did something good, like going to confession. I assumed it would be near my heart and disappear after awhile until I did something else that was good and then the "grace" would re-appear inside.

Amy M.

My daughter thought the phrase "for the good of all His church" was "for the good of Falls Church" (a town in Virginia) and couldn't understand why even in other cities, they would pray for Falls Church!

Muffy

I used to believe that if I were a bad boy then God would open up this trap door in the earth, hurl me down into the fire, lock it up again, and give the key to my mother for until I was a good boy again.

Kiffin Gish

I grew up catholic in Scotland in the 60's and I used to think that children couldn't sin. I was forever naughty, but safe and happy in the belief that all children were free from sin and therefore I could keep being naughty until I was an adult. What I now know is that naughty little girls grow up to be VERY NAUGHTY big girls...

silk

I used to believe all people were either Catholics or Publics

Patrick

When I was about five years I liked to make funny faces to parents (actually to everybody) until my parents told me that if the church would start its chiming and I was making a funny face my face would stay like that forever.

Florian Reitsma

my dad told me that if a Jehovis witness ever came to your door you had to run away because you had done something bad and they were the witnesses and they had come to take you away

Stacey loves Adam (hi Jess)

I used to think, for some reason, that you wern't actually allowed to go into graveyards without an adult with you, so if I ever went into my local cemetery, which was a churchyard cemetery, I always imagined there was a priest inside the (non-catholic) church lurking around and spying out the windows(stained glass) who would come out screaming and yelling if he saw me and chase me out of the cemetery.

Anon

when my sister was born 8 years after me and 7 after my brother we decided we were going to have some fun with her as she grew up. so when she was young we told her that you have to be the denomination of the hospital from which you were born. we told her that our dad was a baptist minister because he was born in a baptist hospital, and that since my mom, my brother and me were all born in the same catholic hospital we were all catholic and practiced it when she wasn't around. we told her that she was a methodist and could no longer continue going to our father's church. she threw a huge fit and started crying untill my parents came in and explained the truth.

big sis

my mum went to a catholic school run by nuns and told me that when she used to think there were three kinds of people - males, females and nuns, because they wore the full on outfits with habits and everything back then, so she never realised they were women. im not sure where she thought priests fitted in...

Alex

I once misunderstood a Bible verse and i thought that if I stole something or murdered someone Jesus would not forgive me and I would go to hell. So when i stole a 25cent toy from a trirft store I felt REALLY guilty and worried. Little did I know then that Jesus forgive ANYTHING.

Danielle

ok as a kid i always went to church on sundays and one time we sat in the very back where alll the screaming babies were because my mom had just had my new sister sarah. and there were these stairs (tht i now know lead up to the balcony) in the back close to where we sat. i always used to ask my dad to take me up there but he never would and i thot tht there must be a very good reason for this. soo i started to believe that tht was the church attic with dusty old statues and that there was a door in the very back and behind that door is where God kept hell and my dad wldnt take me up there because he didnt want me to accidentaly go to hell.

mandy

I went to a Catholic school as a kid and i usesd to think if you wernt catholic you were jewish

anyo

when i was little i was taught in sunday school about sin. I didnt understand so the teacher said when u did something bad black spot appear on ur soul (i figured a soul was ur insides) and if u got to many u went to hell.So i thought that if u filled up ur soul with black spots u would die. I was so afraid for years about doing to much bad things cause i didnt want to die.

Anon

When I was very little, like 5 or so, I believed that everyone in the world had to believe in God and they had to celebrate either Christmas or Channukah. When I found out one of my relatives became an athiest and he didn't believe in God, I thought that was illegal and he would be an outcast to the world.

Anon

I thought when my pastor said the tithes and offerings were 'given for God's use', he actually took it to the church parking lot, threw up the money, and God would take as much as he could from the tossed cash. The rest that fell to the ground belonged to the humans. Safe to say, it's no wonder we moved to a bigger building in record time.

jon chew

A neighbor girl and I were convinced that leprosy was a very common thing. Started in Bible class, I'm certain. The lepers were dealt with by throwing them through a hole in the roof of a specal house without doors or windows, piling up inside and eventually dying. We identified several of these places in our neighborhood. Mean enough, but our greatest concern was that we could be easily infected with leprosity by being touched by older people, say 60+. Our understanding was that church was above all an institution that dealt with this threat by healing lepers. Apparently our teacher wasn't a good communicator.

Anon