I used to think Jesus was alive in the seventies and back then everyone got nailed to a cross.

I used to believe in the tooth fairy, untill I found where my parents kept me and my sisters old teeth. Yeah they did that.

When a pair of garden shears went missing, I believed they must have been stolen.

I still believe a lot of things that I believed as a kid, such as knocking on wood, keeping any promise I make to higher powers, ghosts, fortune telling, general horoscopes, etc. Superstitions that don't cost me money, basically.

Not fortune cookies though. Because fortune cookies are not Chinese. I don't know where the **** they came from.

They taste good, though.
=====

I used to believe the universe is endless and eternal and static. I didn't believe the Big Bang at first.

I used to think Roger Moore became president of the USA and changed his name.

I used to think Puerto Rico is just to the east and a little bit north of Long Island. Cuz I went on vacation there; so it couldn't be very far. And Hawaii is just a little bit west of California or something.

I used to think Australia is to the west of Africa. Yknow, not below Asia. Cuz WTF is it doing close to Asia?

Okay, just remembered some more.

I used to think that History didn't go back that far since I couldn't comprehend a civilisation staying one way for more than 30 years. I also thought that the world also followed the same culture. Pretty much, for a few years there were cavemen, then egyptians for a decade or two, etc. And I was waiting for the world to become like the Jetsons over night which would be when I was eleven.

I also used to believe I could do magic. I used to stay awake for a few hours reciting spell words and concentrating as hard as I could, until I fell asleep. But I kept trying to summon stuff out of thin air like a better TV for myself or that every channel played cartoons non stop. Weird thing was, a few weeks later we got a new television and got cable installed, with Cartoon Network. Coincidence?

Last one, my mother hated us watching too much TV so she used to tell me and my sister that if we left it on for too long, it'd explode. I seriously used to watch three hours of shows and then switch it off. Then, a minute later when my mum or dad wanted to watch something, I got out of there, waiting for the thing to blow.

I used to think “the Poconos” mountain range was an island chain east of the Caribbean.

I was positive that my toys got up and had their own lives when nobody was looking. (Note: this was YEARS before toy story came out, but very similar nonetheless).

Occasionally I still catch my self wondering if deformities caused by traumatic injury (like amputations or scars) can be inherited by children.

I thought that if you had a good enough imagination, the world you imagined could actually physically replace the current one. I never proved the theory right or wrong though I grew out of trying to sit in my room and imagine a replacement world really hard.

I used to think the adults all had a daycare were they got money instead of snacks.
It was quite an elaborate system I developed were the best behaved and well-groomed adults got more money. Kinda like a pet-show, with managers being the trainers and the boss was the judge. Now that I think about it, I wasn't far off.

My grandad used to tell me these absolutely absurd stories, and I believed every single one. My favourite is the one about the mark on his forehead which he got when he deflected a bullet with his face. It was actually just a tiny chicken pox scar.

imshard
I thought that if you had a good enough imagination, the world you imagined could actually physically replace the current one. I never proved the theory right or wrong though I grew out of trying to sit in my room and imagine a replacement world really hard.

Maybe you did, and this is it.

Well jeez, imagine a better one! :P

When I was maybe three years old, I asked my dad if dinosaurs were still around when he was a kid.

I thought that the only reason Superman could fly was his cape, and I could do the same. I never could get a blanket to stay around my shoulders, though, which was clearly why it didn't work.

I thought that late at night, the world would become infested with ghosts and monsters and whatnot, and by sleeping we were somehow safe from them.

I used to think that if someone touched a power cord, regardless of whether or not it was wet or even plugged in, they'd be electrocuted to death.

God.

I love this thread.

I thought of another one:
I probably heard too many of my family's WWII stories, or saw too many PBS documentaries, or something, but…

When I was probably seven or eight, I would lie away at night and imagine that every airplane I heard fly over me at night was going to inexplicably firebomb my small town. I was also pretty sure that the semi-trucks I heard on the highway were tanks, too. I was certain that sooner or later, our town would be like Pompeii or something- that everything would be perfectly preserved under layers of volcanic ashes, which were somehow related to the afore-mentioned firebombing. So I would make sure my room was arranged perfectly before I went to sleep, so that hundreds of years in the future, when archeologists were excavating the ruins of civilization, they would be able to discern what kind of person I was and what kind of culture I lived in from the artifacts I'd left behind.

What a fun and nostalgic idea.

I used to be quite fanciful as a kid, I thought that the big christmas lights on our house were powered by trapped fairies.

It was quite a blow when I finally learned about electricity…

I use to believe that it was God peeing on us when it rained…

…

What? I was cracked in the head okay…

man, i used to hear weird scratchin noises in my closet when i was a kid. and as i remember em, they went from the top of the door a long ways down, but i'm willing to say that was imagination, like there was a mouse in there or something, but whatever it was, it made me sneak downstairs to sleep a lot of the time.
so i started sleeping on the couch in the living room, the thing is, after that, i was sure Freddy Krueger lived in back of that couch after a while. man i was a pretty paranoid little kid.

i thought atari was better than nintendo and that it was holographic. also i thought it didn't need a tv to work and i could interact to it. then when we got to america we bought an atari in a garage sale. i was very disappointed. what the fuck is this shit?

i grew up in a small island.

I used to believe that the government had everyone's best interests at heart and was made up of mostly good, kind men and women doing their best to serve the people.


(sigh)

-Cthulhu, I already went there lame-o :P

I used to think only a couple of countries won WW2…
I never realised it was a joint effort with so very many like the U.S.S.R. India etc. and a zillion little volunteer militia groups all throughout the world, from the Philippines to Serbia.

I'd always thought it was John Wayne and a few of his mates. :)

warefish
I use to believe that it was God peeing on us when it rained…

And snow was his poo? My mum told me the same thing when I was a kid.

- that WWF wrestling is real. Yes. All the punches and kicks and the drama involved is real.

- Santa Claus (I absolutely believed he was real) and the tooth fairy (I was 50-50) is real. I stopped believing in it after I lost a tooth and didn't tell anyone. And after I caught dad red-handed on being “santa claus”.

I thought I could fly. I watched superman and then tied a towel around my neck, climbed a tree then screamed ‘Superman!’ and jumped. I remember my sister cheering me on telling me I could do it but I couldn't. I ended up on the ground with a gash on my head from landing on a branch. Oh the second thing is when I was a fan of Knightrider, of course I thought the car was able to think on it's own, and my friend told me that they were selling Kit at the local car dealer. I couldn't believe it, they were selling Kit! Well, needless to say it wasn't Kit but it was a Trans Am. I told my mom we have to get it and told her about the features of Kit. Wow, my parents probably thought I was nuts, lol.

I used to wonder what's outside of earth, so I came up with the idea that earth is surrounded by a sphere of black, where all the stars and moon are, and that everything beyond that is gigantic empty whiteness. Oh yeah, and the image you see on the moon never changes cause it's the reflection of our side of the planet and to see a different reflection I'd have to travel to some other continent :)

Also, whenever a program mentioned a “World War”, I automatically assumed it's fake.

Next… If you stood on someone's grave, a skeleton would climb up from the grave and pull you under. And that German skeletons (I live about 50km away from the border) are vastly different than ours and that one attacked a classroom, punnching through the wall and the chalkboard rather than walking through the doors.

I'll post more if I can remember any.

I used to think that all bodies of water (aside from swimming pools and bathtubs) had no bottom, and the earth was full of water with continents floating on top. As soon as the water got deep enough to where there was no light, monsters lived there, and they couldn't leave the darkness but could reach tentacles up, grab your ankles, and pull you down until you drowned. (I was afraid of water. I never went swimming if I could avoid it.)

I also thought the moon and sun both gave off their own light and were the same size and equally far from Earth. I thought all the stars were equally far from earth and not much different from each other in size. (Blame our constellation globe for that one…)

Now, my parents, both science teachers, did their best to inform me otherwise, but I didn't believe them. Mom told me grass was green because of chlorophyll and it was a good wavelength to absorb light energy for photosynthesis. I believed all that, but I also decided that God just liked the color green, and that was why most of “nature” was green.

I believed that there were black holes on earth in various locations (Bermuda triangle for one). Dad (physics teacher) egged me on and suggested that our whole universe was already inside a black hole.

cartoonprofessor
I used to believe that the government had everyone's best interests at heart and was made up of mostly good, kind men and women doing their best to serve the people.


(sigh)

Oh man, me too, me too…

kyupol
- Santa Claus (I absolutely believed he was real) and the tooth fairy (I was 50-50) is real. I stopped believing in it after I lost a tooth and didn't tell anyone. And after I caught dad red-handed on being “santa claus”.

Ah yes, those are sad times when you find out about those ones…I stopped believing in the tooth fairy when she forgot about my tooth one time. Not surprisingly, that led me to believe that Santa Claus also probably wasn't real. When I told my dad I thought Santa didn't exist, he said “We-ell, would you be upset if I told you something like that?”
I was only in third grade at the time, so I remember telling my friends that he wasn't real…they laughed and made fun of me. But I showed them, didn't I?

I believed that babies come from space.

Hippie Van

kyupol
- Santa Claus (I absolutely believed he was real) and the tooth fairy (I was 50-50) is real. I stopped believing in it after I lost a tooth and didn't tell anyone. And after I caught dad red-handed on being “santa claus”.

Ah yes, those are sad times when you find out about those ones…I stopped believing in the tooth fairy when she forgot about my tooth one time. Not surprisingly, that led me to believe that Santa Claus also probably wasn't real. When I told my dad I thought Santa didn't exist, he said “We-ell, would you be upset if I told you something like that?”
I was only in third grade at the time, so I remember telling my friends that he wasn't real…they laughed and made fun of me. But I showed them, didn't I?

For me, well, I guess it was gradual.

I stopped believing in the tooth fairy when I found baby teeth in my dad's desk drawer. (Not entirely true. I actually spent a brief period believing my dad was THE tooth fairy or employed by a tooth fairy company…)

As for Santa, I had my own belief system about him. Our house had no chimney. People used to say crazy things about Santa using duct systems or being “magical” and making a chimney appear or something. I never bought the more fanciful “magic” stories. I just figured my parents stayed up and let him in. Then for a while, I believed that one of my parents was responsible for carrying on the Santa myth and pretended to be Santa while the other was in the dark about it. I even left a note to get Santa's autograph to figure out which parent it was. I used to stay up to try and see him, but my vigil was always unsuccessful. The day I truly found out was the first Christmas I started staying up extra late (and I always woke up too early, earlier than everyone else), so my parents went to sleep before I did. When I woke up, there were no presents under the tree. Then, my dad got up, and I helped my parents lay out the presents (and promised not to tell my little brother).

My parents told me that Saint Nicholas was a real man and his whole story, and that Santa was his spirit carried on by parents around the world. Then I learned “Santa” stories from other cultures, and I quite enjoyed them (including one where he resurrected children who were brutally murdered o.0 ). We still carry on our Santa traditions. – Although our Santa is diabetic now and requires sugar-free cookies.



EDIT

One more weird belief. I heard the words “oral sex” on TV when I was in grade school (it was an ad for a sitcom episode – many years before the “Clinton” thing), and I thought they meant kissing. I also wondered why it was such a big deal. Kissing wasn't bad. (I remember being told what french kissing was when I was in third grade and I was completely disgusted.)

usedbooks

Hippie Van

kyupol
- Santa Claus (I absolutely believed he was real) and the tooth fairy (I was 50-50) is real. I stopped believing in it after I lost a tooth and didn't tell anyone. And after I caught dad red-handed on being “santa claus”.

Ah yes, those are sad times when you find out about those ones…I stopped believing in the tooth fairy when she forgot about my tooth one time. Not surprisingly, that led me to believe that Santa Claus also probably wasn't real. When I told my dad I thought Santa didn't exist, he said “We-ell, would you be upset if I told you something like that?”
I was only in third grade at the time, so I remember telling my friends that he wasn't real…they laughed and made fun of me. But I showed them, didn't I?

For me, well, I guess it was gradual.

I stopped believing in the tooth fairy when I found baby teeth in my dad's desk drawer. (Not entirely true. I actually spent a brief period believing my dad was THE tooth fairy or employed by a tooth fairy company…)

As for Santa, I had my own belief system about him. Our house had no chimney. People used to say crazy things about Santa using duct systems or being “magical” and making a chimney appear or something. I never bought the more fanciful “magic” stories. I just figured my parents stayed up and let him in. Then for a while, I believed that one of my parents was responsible for carrying on the Santa myth and pretended to be Santa while the other was in the dark about it. I even left a note to get Santa's autograph to figure out which parent it was. I used to stay up to try and see him, but my vigil was always unsuccessful. The day I truly found out was the first Christmas I started staying up extra late (and I always woke up too early, earlier than everyone else), so my parents went to sleep before I did. When I woke up, there were no presents under the tree. Then, my dad got up, and I helped my parents lay out the presents (and promised not to tell my little brother).

My parents told me that Saint Nicholas was a real man and his whole story, and that Santa was his spirit carried on by parents around the world. Then I learned “Santa” stories from other cultures, and I quite enjoyed them (including one where he resurrected children who were brutally murdered o.0 ). We still carry on our Santa traditions. – Although our Santa is diabetic now and requires sugar-free cookies.

I actually learnt the truth about Santa because my parents kept leaving the price tags on the presents. Not always, there'd always be just one or two pressies with a Big W or K Mart sticker on them and I'd get suspicious. And then I got sneay and started searching for presents.

Managed to keep my parents fooled into thinking I thought Santa was real until I was 10 though. Then they gave me the talk and we stopped it.

when i was about six i believed that when you flushed the toilet it went through pipes and emptied into a big hole out in the desert and it was someone's job to watch to see if anything weird came out. so i flushed a sock down the toilet and insisted on watching the the 6 o'clock news to see the report of the sock coming out of the pipe in the middle of the desert.

i used to sneak downstairs after everyone was sleeping and watch HBO and showtime movies. This one movie i was watch had a woman trying to distract a bunch of people in a mall or something while her friends were stealing a bunch of money. she was stripping and when she finally took off her top i thought “no woman would show her boobies on TV. it must be special effects like monster makeup.”

My dad told me when I was five/six that if I ate Smarties I'd float like a helium balloon. So I was terrified of eating Smarties outside in case I floated in the path of an aeroplane, or worse UP TO SPACE!

When I was about seven I had a biology book that had stickers in it. And you were to stick in the missing organs on the diagrams.
One diagram had a drawing of a mans testacles. And the one that showed having a bladder was a woman. So I thought that only women had bladders and that men held their pee in their testacles.

The whole childhood wonder of Christmas, especially with the Santa bit, pretty much slipped by me.

it's like when my family first took me to see Santa at the mall when I was like 4-5 years old, it's like at the time I was wondering why they took me to see some random guy who was obviously wearing a fake beard. I pretended to be happy to see him though, just to please my parents.

I didn't even ask the guy for presents… as seeing I knew it was from relatives and my parents… considering that relatives would actually come over with their own presents, and hand it directly right to me. So I just sat on his lap quietly while my parents took pictures of us.

and the other reason why I just knew that Santa was fake, was because my parents would actually have their friends dress up as Santa for me and my brother… and well, even under a beard I can easily recognize their faces. considering that I saw them often.
My parents seriously thought that I believed in him though, just because of how I'd laugh and smile at thier friends dressing up like Santa Claus. Little did they know that I was actually laughing because of how ridiculous their friends looked dressed as Santa, and how ridiculous my parents acted when they went: “omg!! look, kids, it's SANTA!!”

I learned about Saint Nicholas in School though… about how he actually or supposedly existed at one point in history as this simple toymaker who wanted to spread cheer during the winter holidays. Then I was like “oh, so that's why people carry on this Santa tradition.”

It's funny how I was so jaded towards santa from day one and still believed that everything on TV was real, huh? lol

bongotezz
when i was about six i believed that when you flushed the toilet it went through pipes and emptied into a big hole out in the desert and it was someone's job to watch to see if anything weird came out. so i flushed a sock down the toilet and insisted on watching the the 6 o'clock news to see the report of the sock coming out of the pipe in the middle of the desert.

When I was an art student, a friend of mine told me about a job he used to have at a sewerage plant. Sometimes they'd have to get in the tanks and clear the outlet pipes. he said some pretty weird stuff came out on occasion.

Hey, I remember one silly thing I used to think:
I'd heard and read that the speed of light was the fastest thing that there was… But I didn't believe that because I could detect a tiny delay when I switched a light on or off. I could also see the light fading as I turned the light off. And finally, when I waved my hand or a stick extremely fast I could see blurred images at all different parts of that motion at the same time.
Heh, so I though that light wasn't so fast afterall. duhhhh…

I also thought that you could make the strongest metal in the world just by finding out all the elements with the best properties of things and making them into a super-alloy: Titanium for strength, boron for tensile strength, lithium for lightness, gold for corrosion resistance… etc.

bongotezz
when i was about six i believed that when you flushed the toilet it went through pipes and emptied into a big hole out in the desert and it was someone's job to watch to see if anything weird came out. so i flushed a sock down the toilet and insisted on watching the the 6 o'clock news to see the report of the sock coming out of the pipe in the middle of the desert.

For me, the toilet was a huge source of fear. So much that for most of my childhood I resisted using the thing. I thought that the toilet would suck me down into that big lake of fire everyone talks about when they discuss the afterlife….

When I was like 6 I recall sneaking under my parent's bed (no I'm not going there, folks so don't even think about it lol) around Easter time. I don't recall why I was under the bed but I was. Anyway, my mom was telling my dad that she had bought me an Easter basket for Easter. My world was devastated. There was no Easter bunny? Then I thought about how stupid it was to think there was this magical bunny hopping around delivering Easter baskets to kids all over the world. Thanks for the memories, mom!