religion

I used to believe…

In first grade, a few of my friends and I dug a huge hole in the play structures sand. We were convinced that if we dug down deep enough, we would reach hell. I don't know WHY we wanted to find hell, but we were very discouraged by the third day and eventually gave up. I didn't realize until several years later that hell wasn't exactly reachable from our school...

I used to believe…

When I was about 9 or 10 years old, I saw a film with my sister about a guy who died and went up to heaven, where there was a queue to get sprayed with something that erased your memory of the past. In the film, the guy was so upset to have died, he bypassed the queue and got sent straight back to earth, where he was born again as a baby and grew up remembering his previous life. 18 years on he was still tormented by these memories and sought out his 'widow', who still left biscuits by his photo every night, and tried to convince her he was her husband.

The film really bothered me and for a while I struggled with the possibility, upon hearing someone we knew had died, that they were coming back to earth, and worse still, would hold all their memories and try and rejoin their former life.

I used to believe…

When I was a kid, before my parents said anything about Heaven and Hell and all that, I used to believe that, after you die, your simply born again, as a baby, then you live your life again. I find this very odd, since before that, I had never even heard about reincarnation, I came up with it on my own.

I used to believe…

When I was little my friend and I made a plan to take over the world. Back then we believed that God and Jesus ruled the world, and they lived in a house on a cloud. The plan was to fly up and tip the cloud over so God and Jesus would fall out, and then we could take over the cloud house and have koolaid and pool parties.

I used to believe…

When I was about 6 I didn't know how to pray. My mom told me to just talk to God, or something like that. So I did. Then I told my mom my prayer didn't work because I didn't hear an answer. I thought praying was like talking on the phone and God would talk to me back.

I used to believe…

my mum went to a catholic school run by nuns and told me that when she used to think there were three kinds of people - males, females and nuns, because they wore the full on outfits with habits and everything back then, so she never realised they were women. im not sure where she thought priests fitted in...

I used to believe…

When I was in junior high, I was asked to be an acolyte at church. That meant walking behind the pastor and lighting the candles at the start of the service, and then extinguishing them at the end. There was a special robe I got to wear, which meant that after the service, I would follow the pastor to his office where we would hang our robes back up in the closet. He was chatting with me, and taking his robe off (fully clothed underneath, of course). It was the first time the thought crossed my mind that 'Pastor Ed' was a regular person. I was disturbed by the thought that he went home and ate dinner, watched t.v. and yelled at his kids just like everyone else.

Don't get me started on the time when I walked into the church kitchen and saw a big, industrial size bag of wafers from some warehouse store, and realized that they were the 'body of christ' I was given at communion.

I used to believe…

My grandmother used to tell me that Jesus was always in my heart, henceforth, i belived that ther was actually a little man living inside my heart and everytime my heart beat, it was him praying.

I used to believe…

Ok when i was small everyone would always tell me that god was everywhere and everything you would touch was god. So every step I would take i would always repeat ''sorry god'' because I though that I was stepping on him. It even came to a point that I would ask god permission before moving around.

I used to believe…

when i was little i got confused with religions and blood(irish,chines,ect) and i was in 1st grade when we had to right a journal thing and i wrote,"i like st.patricks day but im not jewish" i ment irish,even tho i am irish

I used to believe…

When my sister was about 6 at Christmas time, she came home from school and sang us a carol she had just learned.
She started alright with 'Ding Dong merrily on high'
but unfortunately finished with 'Hosannah in his trousers'

I used to brlieve that when you are about to go to sleep, and you pray, and your laready laying dowm, when you close your eyes to pray. When your finished praying, I always thought you had to open your eyes and close them back or else Jesus would think your prayer would go on ond on.

I used to believe…

My kids used to believe that Jesus was born in Sheffield,Yorkshire.I don't know why but I told them he was,I didn't think it was any different to telling them Father Christmas was real,or that dogs could fly if their wings weren't clipped

I used to believe…

My family was never a very religious family, but nonetheless, my mom told me about god an heaven. I somehow came to think that heaven was located in the clouds. We used to travel alot before I turned 5 and started school, but everytime I was on a plane I would search through the clouds, trying to see if I could see heaven.

I used to believe…

When I went to a private christian school for first grade, there was this song they taught you that went "Read your bible, pray every day and you'll grow, grow, grow" and then "Neglect your bible, forget to pray and you'll shrink, shrink, shrink" and I took it literally. I would freak out if I didn't try to read at least one word of the bible and pray to God every day. I would start measuring myself. I even took it so far as to stop reading and praying for a while when I heard my mom complaining about how fast I was growing up and she didn't like it.

I was very shy in my 4th grade catholic classroom. One day the teacher was describing the religious feast of pentecost and she asked if anyone knew what this was called. Being extremely shy I would only answer a question when i was one hundred percent convinced i was right. To the shock of my teacher, i raised my hand and proudly blurted out "the holocaust". i dont think anyone else knew what it meant but judging by the "No - God NO!" we all knew it was bad. She never explained it and i always thought twice about answering questions in class after that.

I used to believe…

When I was really young, I saw the film "The Little Mermaid" for the first time. For whatever reason, I associated the priest in the wedding scene with God. From then on, I imagined that God looked like the priest. Even in my adult life, I think of any faceless major deity as the priest from "The Little Mermaid."