I used to believe that religion was something that was in another language. I was raised a Catholic. When I was young it was in Latin at church. My mother is Mexican so it was Spanish at home. It was a long time before I knew otherwise.

Judy

When I was too young to go to confession, I'd watch my parents and others go behind the confessional curtains, and imagined that there were stairways that led down to a dungeon-like large space . . . but I don't think or don't remember what I thought went on down there.

Roger Mexico

I used to believe that an egg would magically appear in one of the special little gold boxes at the front of the (Catholic) church I went to. It was supposed to be like magic. But then I started to wonder if the priest just put it in there when no one was looking.

Anon

I am an Anglican/Episcopalian. When I was little, I thought a lady could not be a priest. I never did see a lady minister until I was in high school, and then again, she was of another faith. When I was in college, the Episcopal church had a lady priest. I was so surprised! I still find it difficult to believe that a lady can be a priest.

Hilary the baker

When I was a child attending Catholic church my Mom would tell my sister an I not to let the communion host touch our teeth. It was Jesus's body and if we bit it we would be biting Jesus and He had already suffered enough when he was hung on the cross.

Annmarie

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

Someone told me a story once about a bad guy who broke into a Catholic church and stole the eucharist (white circular bread thing). Supposedly the eucharist started bleeding all over the altar. I believed the whole story.

Anon

I never thought this, but when I was a kid a guy my age told me that the New Testament was just the New Testament until the next Testament would be published. Then what we know as the New Testament would become the Old Testament. I asked him he was wrong and asked what they'd do with the current Old Testament. I never got a good answer to that one.

Lee

My six year-old cousin thought that virgins were people who went to Church, and went around declaring that she wasn't a virgin.

Anon

Up until I was 7 years old, I believed that there were big beakers of orange juice on the altar in church. That was because the big candles in those glass enclosures were colored (for some reason) orange. I kept asking my dad what the orange juice was doing there and he thought I was nuts.

Bing

Although my family wasn't Catholic and I didn't even know any Catholics, I did know who the Pope was. When I couldn't figure out why Easter was on a different date every year, I assumed the Pope decided every year when Easter would be celebrated.

Anon

They showed a lot of rapture movies at my church when I was in high-school. For a couple of years I was really disappointed because I was totally and completely convinced that we were going to be raptured before I would have a chance to get married and have a family.

E

INWAS TOLD IF I CUT MY HAIR I WOULD GO TO HELL.

JEANETTE

When my sister and I were children you went to Catholic church with this little doiley thing on your head. I had very thin straight hair any my bobbypins would fall out. My sister told me that it was a sin not to wear it so I had to manage to keep it on. One windy day I was entering the church when a gust of wind blew my "doiley" off my head. My grandmother and sister were a few steps ahead of me and I hollered, at the top of my lungs to them, into a big, old echoey church, "I can't go in there Nana or I'm going straight to hell!" Needless to say the congregation got quite a kick out it. The priest did explain to me later that that was simply not true. I'm not Catholic anymore.

Susan

I used to believe Mr. Rogers lived in my church.

whitey

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