church

I used to believe that the Sistine Chapel was one of the 16 and where were the other 15 chapels in the Vatican???

Patsy Davila

When I was 6 my best friends mother said: "Sarah I know your Mom is Catholic but what religion is your Dad"? I replied: "Well my Dad is public"! I thought that if you went to a public school it meant you were public.

Sarah

the first time i saw a confession box, i clocked that it was about the size of a person (even though you couldn't see in), was in the dark, kinda spooky corners of the church and had a person's name over the door, and figured that that must be where they kept the dead bodies while they were waiting for the funeral! i used to sprint past them, cos i was petrafied that one was going to fall out on me.

ciara

When I would go to church or Catholic school, I would always see the bible chapter and verse notation at the end of any quote or passage, like John 3:16. Because I didn't know any better, I was sure that the little note at the end of the bible verse was the guy who wrote it, and the time he finished. So, in my mind, John would have signed his name, and looking at his digital watch, put down 3:16.

Tim

when i was little my mom asked me if i knew where god was. when she asked i ran out of the room thinking that god was missing and i was being blamed for it. now my dad tells that story all the time when he preaches at church.

christie

when i was little i asked what time midnight mass started.

i honestly had no idea.

what time??

i used to think the bell rung in the catholic church during the consecration of the host was rung by angels. i was horrified when, at age 11, i became an altar girl and the priest asked me if i wanted to ring the bell.

i

Okay so the other day in Sunday School at my church we were talking about Palm Sunday. Mrs. Reitz (the teacher) said that Jesus's followers fanned him with palms and put palms on the ground so that he would have to step in the mud. Then just yesterday I asked my mom, "Wouldn't it hurt to have your palms stepped on?"
And Mom said, "At my church on Palm Sunday they would give us a palm to wave around"
"WOW they gave you a real hand?"
I thought they meant the palm of your hand, not a palm leaf! I'm 11!!!

Emmy

At church, one line in a prayer was “forgive us our sins”, but I thought we were all saying “give us your cents”. And then I would say/think, ‘but that’s all I have! I don’t want to give my cents away!’ lol

EJ

I used to believe that monks and nuns married each other and made more Catholics.

Jayme

On passover, my parents always told me to wait through the whole long service for the afikoman, which I was supposed to find after dinner. In reality this is a hidden piece of matzah, or unleavened bread, which tastes like an extremely stale cracker. But I used to believe that it must be a giant slab of chocolate, because no one in their right mind would sit for so long just to wait for some hidden matzah.

nice jewish girl

As a child, one church I was sometimes taken to was of the denomination called Disciples Of Christ. I learned much later that that denomination is sometimes called "Campbellites" (with varied connotations) after it's founder, Thomas Campbell. My father called it that sometimes, but I thought then he was saying "Camelites". Then one time I went to a Greek festival at a Greek Orthodox Church. Some of us toured the sanctuary, where there were murals, showing, among other things, the three Wise Men riding horses, not camels, as I was more familiar with. The guide told us that that was more historically accurate, that their likely means of transportation at that time would have been horses, not camels. I thought then and there that I'd learned why my more familiar church was sometimes called "Camelite" -- because of a belief not shared with certain other churches, including the Greek Orthodox, that the Wise Men rode camels.

Lucy

My dad is a rabbi, so I was so used to seeing the Star of David, and I figured that this is what all stars looked like. So once I drew a sky full of six-pointed stars, and my dad absolutely adored it... they were just supposed to be stars, but I couldn't tell him for years because he'd looked so proud of my religious statement. ^^

Stargirl

My dad was a preacher in the United Baptist church (the ones who breathe loudly between every few words, sounding something like "uhmm-uhh"). As a child, I thought those sounds were hiccups, and I always wondered why preaching made Dad do that...not to mention why he could make them stop so quickly after church had ended. Once when I got the hiccups I decided that I was going to be a preacher when I grew up, so that I could make them stop whenever I wanted.

Sarah

My family's catholic, so this one day we were in mass, I was about 4 or 5 and i had to chant along, and i thought chanting was a moral obligation no one could be excused from, so, I ended up asking my mother: "Mom, how do mute people chant?" We left church that very second because of my family's laughter...Even if I am not a cotholic now, they still remind me of mute people's chanting....

MoMiKa

We weren't really religious, so i became curious at the age of 3 or 4 why people went to Church or Temple and what the difference was between the two. My parents told me that at temple they worship God and at church they worship God and Jesus.

I was torn because I thought "temple" was a really cool word, but at church you clearly were getting a two-for-one deal!

Elise

I was a really skeptical kid so I never really believed in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, but I also thought that the stories in church were silly and made up. I remember being embarrassed when I was about 10 and talking to my parents to find that they really do believe in God even after they admitted there was no Santa Claus. I thought they were just really gullible. No wonder I'm an atheist.

Alicia

Until I was eleven I used to believe in God. From the age of five my parents sent me and my younger brother to Sunday School each week, giving us a few pence each to put in the offering plate. When I realised that we hadn't been caught spending half of the offering money in the sweet shop each Sunday for the previous four years I stopped believing in any form of omniscient being. Sorry, Mum!

Rich

I was very little; we were at a Catholic mass for Ash Wednesday. My mom carried me up to the front of the church, and while the priest was rubbing the ash cross onto her forehead, I pushed his hand away and yelled, "Why is God putting dirt on your face?!"

Anon

For those of you who have experienced the Catholic Religion, you know that Communion is presented as "the body of Christ." As a small child, I was horrified at the notion that people would actually "eat" Christ, and refused to participate...Of course, I was also curious about how they got His body formed into such neat little white round wafers.

kelly from kansas