religion: church

I was raised Catholic but just couldn't understand the whole Confession thing when I became old enough to go. My catechism teacher and I had the following discussion.

Me: So I tell the priest what I did, he gives me a penance, and I'm forgiven?
Teacher: Yes
Me: But God already knows what I did, right?
Teacher: Yes
Me: So if I wasn't REALLY sorry for what I did, God would know, right?
Teacher: Yes
Me: But the priest wouldn't know if I wasn't sorry at all, would he?
Teacher: No, he wouldn't.
Me: So if the priest doesn't know if I'm sorry or not but God does, then how am I forgiven just for saying 3 Hail Mary's?
Teacher: Go sit down.

When I was a kid, I was watching an episode of Starsky and Hutch and there was a prostitute in it. I wasn't exactly sure what a prostitute was but I thought it was a something to do with religion, maybe the opposite of a Catholic? I asked my Gran "What's a prostitute" and her jaw dropped open with shock before she eventully said "A prostitute is a very naughty girl". I couldn't understand it - surely people who went to church a lot weren't naughty?

When I was just a little kid, there were Coca-Cola commercials on at the time that would always end with a person taking a drink of Coke, and saying: "Ahhh". The priest at my church would always say "Ahhh" (but more of an exhaling of breath than an Ahhh) after he took a drink from the chalice. This lead me to believe that the priest had Coca-cola in his chalice.

As a Catholic, I hated going to confession when I was little. I could never remember anything wrong I had done or any lies I had told, so I would make something up, promising myself I would confess that lie at the next confession. Always thought I would be struck down for lieing about lieing!

I remember growing up in church when I was a small child. When the minister would would recite psalms and the congregation would respond, I never realized everyone was reading out of a book because I was too small to see. So, I just assumed everyone around me was an alien.

When I first moved to Idaho, I had no idea that LDS was a religion. When a new neighbor girl asked me if I was LDS, I thought she meant the Drug LSD. Needless to say I freaked out because I thought she was giving it to me or something.

When I was younger and went to church the priest would always end with "peace be with you." Well I always thought he said "Please go away." I thought he was so rude, and hated the thought of going to church because of it.

I used to think that if i looked at a cross it would turn me christian. every time we passed a church in the car, i'd close my eyes.
I was raised jewish. nobody ever told me about how religions worked.

I was raised Catholic, and when I was very young, my mother would always take me to children's mass in the auditorium of the local Catholic school. I had never attended mass in the actual church, but was dying to do so, because I was told that it was "God's House". I thought if I could just get across the street to the church Jesus would be in there, just hanging out, and I could meet him.

When I was at the christening of my sisters 3rd child. Her first child said as the Vicar approached, "Are you God". To this the Vicar with an air of self importance replied, "Very nearly my son, very nearly".

When my mom was younger, her family attended this really traditional Roman Catholic Church where the service was entirely in Latin, so you couldn't really understand what was going on. A bell was rung when they did communion, and it was a really solemn part of the mass. When her parents brought her younger sister to church for the first time, the bells were rung for communion and her little sister stood up on the pew and shouted "Wait a minute, Hoppy! I want ice cream!" (Hoppy was the driver of the town ice cream truck, and she thought that the bells she heard came from the ice cream truck)

I asked my father what holy water was. He told me it was the priest's bathwater.

I was convinced that God was married to Mother Nature until I went through Confirmation in the eigth grade.

My pastor thought it was funny and told the whole congragation about it the next Sunday.

I met a male Protestant for the first time and I found it odd - I didn't think there were any male Protestants. As a child I had always thought that Protestants were the people who roam the sidewalks at night asking sex for money.

It was only after that I found out those were actually "prostitutes".

I used to think when I was little that when you had your first communion they nailed you to a cross. When I learned in religion class I would be having mine soon, I cried and when the teacher asked me what was wrong I said "Just because they did it to Jesus doesn't mean they have to do it to me!"

When I was growing up in rural Iowa, there was a set of three large, decorative crosses by the side of the road on the way to town. I thought that they were archaeological remnants of the ancient times during which they used to really crucify people. (In ancient Iowa.)