I used to believe that when you died you became God for a few seconds until the next person died. Although it was only for a short time, it would feel like forever. And so there is no one God but it is the souls of everyone who is dead looking over and guiding everyone who is still alive, as they get a second to sparkle before moving on to let the next incumbent take the reins in Heaven.

All this sounds very nice but it is genuinely what I believed. As soon as I realised nobody else believed this, during primary school, I stopped believing in God and now have no religion.

Flash Wilson

As a Jehovahs Witness when I was a child, we were always told how wonderful things would be for us Witnesses after Armageddon! (cheerful way to bring up kids,huh?)We were told everyone spoke Hebbrew in this new world and I had a thousand years to learn it. I used to believe my parents would have to leave me behind as we hadn't even started to learn French at school so how could I be expected to learn Hebbrew too? Is it any wonder I no longer practice any religion???

OK now , honest!

Attending a religious school as a young child it was part of the day to read the life of a saint. Their heoric deeds were so far beyond anything I could imagine at a very young age, I made up my mind that even if I were the best possible behaved person all I could ever wind up being was an angel.

We were taught by nuns who were huge towering figures in long black robes and high headpieces covering all trace of any hair. Only their oval faces were visible from this all encompassing habit, and hands. Occasionally an orthpedic black oxford shoe would peek out from the hem of the voluminous garment. It took a very long time before I understood that there were people under the robes, and what's more they were women. In my mind they were a separate species, born to be nuns and nothing else.

Parochial school child

I used to believe that God was filming you 24/7 on what you do, and then shows the finished picture to your parents when you died. This freaked me out, and, now, I know better.

He writes it all down, of course.

A Constant Movie Star

My parents are atheists, and raised me as such, but nearly everyone else I knew was Christian. So I'd heard the Christian answer to "what happens when we die" because I had religious friends who had deceased relatives, but I'd never heard the secular answer. All I had heard from my parents on the subject was my dad's jest; "heaven must be awfully crowded."

For the longest time I was convinced that there wasn't enough room in heaven for atheists, so - naturally - we were allowed to keep on living forever until some space freed up. Yup. Still kind of disappointed about this one, actually.

Immortal?

When I was really little, (about 3 or 4) my great-grandmother died and I had to attend the funeral. After everyone met at a family member's house I had never visited before, I got to ride in a limosine to the funeral home. I'm a Christian, and I was taught (and still believe) when you die, you go to heaven. There was an older girl sitting next to me (probably a second cousin or something) and I was tired and wanted to take a nap in the limo, and I just told her, "Wake me up when we get to heaven!" I thought the funeral home was heaven. I went through the whole funeral and banquet afterwards thinking I was in heaven. Fortunantly, my mom corrected me not much longer after.

Krysten

From my mother;
who was told that when the sky was orange at dawn it was because heaven was at war (with hell?).
[She once fled her home with a few of her sisters in tow in order to save them.]

Lennie

My friend use to be terrified that on judgement day all humans would stand in an alphebetical line to meet with God. Since her last name is Harris, she would have to stand in line next to the evil king Herrod from the bible. She still gets nervous when people talk about the end of the world!

Anon

When i was a little girl i used to believe that if i was really good god would let me come ride up to heaven and then come back down in tiime for dinner!

Victoria

For no explainable reason, I used to think that everyone's soul looked like a small child dressed in Victorian clothing. Maybe a wee too much Oliver as a kid?

Xornia

I used to believe that when people said "Your soul is inside you", that your soul was an organ inside your body, and it looked like your liver.

Megan

I used to believe than God lived in the sky and the clouds were heaven.When i went on my first aeroplane I Saw the clouds and started asking "where is God?Is he lost? Is he dead?Where is Grandad?(he was dead)"I then began to run up and down the aeroplane having a tantrum because I could'nt see God, Jesus or Any dead people!

GooGolGoo

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

I used to think that when we got to heaven there would be new colors that no one knew about yet.

Tracey

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 that the visible rays of the sun were beaming people up to heaven. like in star trek.

Anon

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 the damned had one las chance to save their souls before entering Hell, which wasn't a test of piety or charity, but instead a physical challenge. You could get into Heaven if only you could walk a tightrope a mile long or hold your breath for three minutes.

Spencer

When i was little i thought that heaven looked like where i live here on earth. So everyday i would try to see if i was in heaven by jumping off the couch, if i could fly like Peter Pan then i was in heaven. It hasn't worked yet.

Leah

I use to believe that if two people died at the same time that they would go into a boxing match and whoever won went to hevan and the other had go to hell

meebo