My dad once told me that when the bells rang in church it meant that Jesus noticed some child misbehaving and was getting angry at them. Whenever the bells rang and I was bored or being bad I was convinced that Jesus had noticed that I was not paying attention and was mad at me. So I would immediately sit up and attempt to be on my best behavior. When the bells rang and I knew that I was not misbehaving I always looked around and attempted to find the other child that Jesus was repremanding.

To this day bells still kinda put me on edge.

Anon

As a Catholic, I heard a lot about this "virgin" Mary. Not knowing what the word virgin actually meant, I assumed it referred to sainthood. When I was around 7-8, I went around telling everyone that I really wished I was a virgin, but that it was too hard and I wasn't disciplined enough.
I never understood why they looked so shocked.

Sarah

I think I was about eight when I was first introduced to the creation/evolution debate, and I remember thinking it was -obvious- that the right answer was a cross between the two: that God set off the big bang and oversaw the process of evolution like a quality-assurance person in a factory that made planets. Sort of a biblical Slarty Bartfast ("Hitchiker's Guide To the Galaxy").

Nan

When I was little, my best friend Lizzy had a teenage sister and (sister and her friends) would always say "dude", it being the late 90s and all. But I thought they were saying "Jew!" so one day I met a Jewish girl in the neighborhood. Every time I saw her I would say "Jew!" and after a while she would say, "Christian!" So most of our conversations started like this:
Meg: Christian!
Juliette: Jew!
Meg: I got the new Barbie.
Juliette: COOL....

Juliette

i thought that at church when people said "peace be with you" they were saying "cheese be with you," and i thought "hosanna on high" was "lasagna on high."

Caitlin

Since we receive bread at Mass, I thought he was called "Jesus Crust" Seemed pretty obvious!

Anon

when I was about six I remember asking an Adult what Mary did before she was a statue....

anon

I used to think that 'hippie' was a religion

Shannon

In our Church, children are baptized at the age of 8. When the time came for my brother, four years older than me, to be baptized, I was terrified for him, because I thought it involved being put into a ring with a wild bull.

Dave P.

when I was little, in the first grade, I thought the nuns weren't human, they were just 'beings' with arms, feet and a head, who wore weird 'hats' and long black dresses. I was tramatized one day when the skirt of one of the nuns was lifted by the wind, SHE HAD LEGS!

Joan

I used to believe that during Catholic Mass, when parishoners greet each other and whisper "Peace be with you", they were whispering "psst psst psst".

Jeff

There was a certain drinking fountain at my church that I always drank out of from the time I was a toddler. There was a plaque mounted on the wall next to this drinking fountain that had the Bible verse that said "Whoever drinks this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst again."

I remember when I learned to read, I read that plaque and I thought that the reason I ever got thirsty was BECAUSE I had drank from that drinking fountain. I remember thinking that it was too bad I drank from it before I learned to read-- if I hadn't, I would never get thirsty ever again!

Marie

When I was very small the Catholic Church used the old LAtin liturgy, and the priest celebrated mass with his back to the congregation. During the consecration, a lot happened. The priest washed his hands, poured some water into a chalice, then he would make the sign of the cross over the chalice, which seemed a sort of stirring motion when seen from behind. A few moments later he opened the tabernacle, and took out a chalice full of already consecrated hosts. Naturally, I thought the tabernacle was a small oven, and the priest had stirred up a batch of communion wafers and baked them on the spot.

Mary

I used to believe that the ringing of the bells in the Catholic church service were to wake people up.

It seemed very plausible to me. I was bored stiff.

HSB

At church, after (or maybe before??) everyone had taken their communion and you'ld turn to people around you skaing their hands saying 'Peace be with you', I misunderstood....as a child I used to shake people's hands and say 'pleased to meet you'. Thing is, my parents would encourage me to do it more for comedy value, and i didnt understand for ages what was so funny.

Katy

When I had to make my first communion I was scared because they say the body of christ, and i thought it was his real body, i thought it was thin slices of his arms and legs, and i hoped they would run out before i made my communion so i would not have to eat jesus.

mimi

when i was little my friend told me that when you get baptized, they kept you underwater until you caught a fish in your mouth. and i believed him, it took me a long time to figure out that was wrong

Anon

When my sister and I were about 8 and 10 years old we overheard some adults talking about Martin Luther nailing his thesis to the door. My sister decided to show off at Sunday school and told the teacher about Martin Luther nailing his feces to the Castle Church door. The teacher about wet her pants laughing as did a few of the older kids. We were bewildered until only a short time later when the real meaning of the word was explained.

Anon

When I was little I thought that Catholic reffered to people who followed the Catholic faith, and Roman Catholic was a Catholic who dressed in historical clothing, such as armor, helmet, etc. I thought they drove chariots, like how an Amish person drives a buggy.

Rafaela

I used to believe that priests had a sense of humor. When mass ended on that fateful Sunday morning and the congregation filed into line to be blessed by the priest, I put my hypothesis to the test. As I approached Father Nick, I pulled out my plastic toy gun and repeatedly fired it at him, yelling "stick um up!" and "BANG! BANG!" over and over. My first inclination that my assertion was completely false occurred when Father Nick screamed at my mother to get "that devil out of my church!". In case I had any doubts that this was a mistake, my mom spanked them out of me outside of the church entrance as the congregation filed past us. In hindsight, the lesson learned was priests may not enjoy pranks but God sure does.

Spiro