I did strongly believe that the road I walked on must have also been walked on by Jesus when he was on earth and going round on his travels. And I even tried to walk in such a way that I thread exactly on his footsteps. I just did not understand at a young age that something that was in place in the here and now - like that road - was not there 2000 years ago.

Rina

My mother always told me that you had to be married to have children. So I just assumed that God and Mary were divorced; she had just left him for Joseph.

Anon

At some point in my childhood, the subject of Henry VIII came up, along with the fact that he had some of his wives beheaded. I asked my mother why, and she said -- without providing any other context -- "Because he was Catholic". It's important to note here that my mother was not some kind of raving anti-Catholic bigot, she just somehow neglected to take into account that my brain at that stage of development was incapable of grasping the historical context of the Catholic church, its policies on divorce at the time, and all the other political factors involved. In any case, I subsequently spent a portion of my childhood believing that Catholics were horrible, scary people who cut their wives' heads off.

John

When I was young I thought I was the anti-christ. The number of the anti-christ was 666. I added up the number of letters in each of my names and came up with 777. I thought for sure that somewhere in the translations of the bible someone had made a mistake.

Charles

Growing up Jewish in the United States I was confused about many details of Christianity and I guess noone ever thought to teach me. For many years I thought that Santa Claus was Jesus as an old man. Well... they both had beards, just check out those claymation holiday specials.

Ezra Sherman

I asked my mom where Jesus was because I wanted to know why I had never seen him. She told me he lived in my heart. A nice thought, but I was quite disturbed picturing a little man with long hair in robes living inside me.

Anon

I used to think that God was this little midget like thing that lived inside your stomach and told you what to do. I refered to him as my little friend and i swear he used to tell me to color and play on the swings.

Laura

I was 5, watching TV, and a Nun was sitting by a patient in a hospital. The patient was being given blood. Just before the advert came on, 'end of part...' whatever, it showed the Nun's face surrounded by flames, presumbaly a metaphor for war, and how Nuns are heroic & groovy medically speaking.

I believed that Nuns could walk through fire and if they caught you while you slept, they'd kill you by draining the blood out of your body.

Needless to say, I then believed Nuns were evil, Jesus and his mates were evil, and anyone that had a cross was evil.

Didn't get much sleep for a few years.

zelenka

My biggest mistake as a child: never sit and read through a full color picture Bible at age 6 when you have no idea what Christianity is all about or what happened. I saw Jesus crucified and started screaming my head off, partly because I thought it was horrible human beings could do that to one another, partly because I thought that was what you had to do to be Christian. My mom calmed me down though and told me everything. Maybe that's the reason I'm an agnostic today. ;-)

Michelle

When I was very young, my mother once told me the story of Jesus blessing the little children. I was a little upset that the little children all got to go see Jesus and I didn't. I figured it must have happened on the day that I was sick and the family went somewhere and left me at home.
For a long time, I wouldn't let them go anywhere - especially church - without me.

Annie

When my husband was young and misbehaving, his mom would call THE DEVIL on him. In truth, she'd really call his dad up at work and he would do his best devil impersonation. But imagine how tramatizing this would be for a 3-year-old!

Sony full of Bologna

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 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

Up until I was about 9, I thought all the snakes were the devils children because satan was a snake during the story of Adam and Eve. So I would always catch the snakes and talk to them so when they saw "dad" (aka:the devil) that just incase I didn't get to heaven the devil would somehow be nicer to me than everybody else because I was friends with his "kids".

Clueless

In Sunday school before I made my first communion, the nuns told us about God, the Supreme Being, in contrast us human beings. But I heard it as "bean" and for some time pictured God as a giant lima bean in the sky with all us human beans clustered under him in worship.

MotherLibrarian

When I was about 9 years old I thought that when I blew bubbles, and they popped in different places on my driveway that I was an angel or a a saint sending new babies to be born all over the world. I even made a little map out of chalk to mark where the babies landed. But if they popped in the air, the mother had had a misscarriage. I felt horrible for all the babies that "died" and i later held small funerals for them.

just call me saint.

I used to think God and Godzilla were the same guy. I was very confused about why people seemed to like God so much, and also about how such a huge monster could stay in the clouds and not fall down and squish us all.

Anon

I used to believe that the soul was a "green, lima-bean shaped organ located somewhere near the gall bladder." This is the description of the soul I would have in my head whenever I thought about it. My grandma also had a little purple man as decoration in her kitchen who peeked over the cupboard with his nose hanging over -- somehow I then conceived that God was a purple man in a brown fedora and a big, green nose, who sat in the clouds and peeked over them when necessary to throw down lightning bolts.

Marie

I grew up Jewish. Until I was about 10, I believed that everyone who wasn't Jewish was Catholic.

Philm35

I used to think no one built the ark because I confused it with Noah.

Anon