religion

I used to believe…

My mother was raised catholic and went to catholic schools, complete with nuns as teachers. When she moved and got married she stopped going to church regularly and the only time she would take us to church was during the month or two that her parents would come to visit during the christmas season. Because of this I thought that church was only open in the winter.

I used to think that God controlled the traffic lights, kinda like watching over you so you wouldn't get into accidents.-.-'

I used to believe that prayers were like phoning God ie when you made the sign of the cross it was like dialling the number and after you said your prayer you HAD to do the sign of the cross to hang up or God would still be able to read your mind and he'd know if you were doing or thinking anything bad. I also believed that if you were interrupted during your prayer you would have to stop and make the sign of the cross to hang up and THEN you could attend to the interruption. I was about eight years old when I started to doubt this belief but then one day we were saying prayers in class (Catholic school) and the teacher made us do do sign of the cross but then another teacher came in and our teacher just stopped. My friend leaned over and whispered to me and said "Be good, God can still hear us because we didn't hang up". Thus my unusual belief was reaffirmed for another year.

I used to believe…

When i was little i used to believe that the nuns hadn't got hair because always they had putting on the habit on their head and i thought this was their real hair

I used to think if you prayed God would "grant" them, like wishes. I was obsessed with Japan at the time and would always pray to be Japanese. (about 8) Every morning I truly believed that when I walked over and looked in the mirror I would have slanted eyes and black hair.

I used to believe…

we used to sing the Lord's prayer in first school, it was the one with "forgive us our trespasses and forgive those who trespass against us" as opposed to "forgive us our sins", which for a bunch of 4-10yr olds would have been much easier and would not have resulted in the whole assembly getting to that line in the song and simply replacing it with "sussy sussy"... everyone sang the same thing, NOBODY knew what the real words were!!!

I used to believe…

when i was little i thought if you thought about the devil he would take your soul away from you

I used to believe…

At my church, there's a life-size statue of Jesus on the cross, hanging on one of the walls. For years I thought that was Jesus Himself, the actual body, watching my every move!

I used to believe…

When I was in Kindergarden, the first Gulf War broke out. I didn't understand war, but I picked up enough to know that the Americans were fighting Saddam Hussein. One day my mom told me to pray for my enimies. That night, my prayers included "...and please let Saddam Hussein be blown to smiterines!"

I used to believe that Jerusalem and all the other places the Bible talked about were made up, so the stories in it had to be made up too. I didn't understand why they talked about the same book at church every week, why didn't they ever get a new one?

I used to believe…

There was this one hymn that my church always sang. It went, "Our heavenly father,"
I always sang it "Our harily father,"
I pictured God as some hairy guy, just covered in fur.
I only found out the correct lyrics two years ago.

i used to think that the word'amen' was actually 'our men'. so when i was gathered round a table with my rather large christian family, aged seven, and we said thanks for the food, the prayer ended with amen, and i called out at the top of my voice 'and our women too!'

I used to believe…

When I was 9 I was about to make my communion so . . . I was really obsessed with religious things. I use to think that the thumb was the Virgin Mary (my thumb looked feminine to me), the pointer finger was Jesus, the ring finger was God, the pinky was an Anger, and of course the middle finger was the Devil.

I used to believe…

When I was little, on days when we visited my grandmother, we would go to a different church than we usually did. At the back of this church, on the second level, on the balcolny, there was a huge gold organ. I thought it was the gate of Hell.

I used to believe that if you opened your eyes while praying, that for however long you had your eyes opened, you had to keep your eyes closed for that much longer after the prayer was finished. So i started closing just one eye, and the other eye that i kept opened would see who else would need to keep their eyes closed after the prayer

I used to believe…

when i first heard about life after death, i was afraid to die of old age, because i did not want to end up in heaven as an old, wrinkled, ugly lady