A nun who ran my CCD (religious instruction class) told us never to point at people. “When you point at them,” she stated “You kill a part of their soul.”
I also recall hearing that if you chewed the Holy Communion wafer after the priest inserted it into your mouth, the blood of Christ would hemmorhage from it.
A sex education manual that we were issued in 6th grade specifically stated that “homosexuals lurk around high schools so that they can approach & befriend confused young men in order to sway them into accepting their lifestyle.” And the caption was accompanied by a photo of a shady, sinister homosexual leering evilly at some young teenagers. (This was at a public, secular school mind you. I didn’t realize at the time how homophobic this was. In fact, as a horny 13 year old, I actually went looking around my school, and was a bit upset when I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to “approach & befriend” me. Hell, they wouldn’t have to bother ‘converting’ me - I was already raring to go!)
Very cool. My attitude is “Religions don’t exist in a vacuum” and I know that my spiritual calling is a pig’s breakfast of different traditions, myths, and good-ol’ well, this works for me.
Good lord and butter! I always thought that parochial school horror stories were just an urban legend.
When we were kids, my brother told me he had seen the Tooth Fairy. I was skeptical, but he went into great detail about her clothes and her wand, and got mad when I didn’t believe him. On this evidence alone, I believed in the Tooth Fairy for about another year. Finally, he told me he had made it up to get me back for saying that I had seen the Easter Bunny. Grrr!
You see, the difference is, I actually did see the Easter Bunny. This happened one Easter when my brother, my mom, and I were staying at the family vacation house with my cousin, my aunt, and my uncle. This was a small vacation house on the river, and it had only one bedroom, in which were crammed at least four beds. I woke up in the middle of the night to hear my mother and aunt whispering together. I couldn’t tell what they were talking about, but I caught “Do you think we should wake up the kids?” I answered, “Yes!” and crawled over to join the conversation.
The bedroom door was open, and my aunt could look directly out through it across the sitting room and see a small window up near the ceiling…in which was silhouetted the head of a rabbit. It was facing us, and both ears were upright. I was amazed, and more than a little frightened. After all, judging by the size of the head and the height of the window, this was one massive bunny. And he could tell I was awake!
After a brief conference, it was decided that we should all feign sleep with great enthusiasm, in hopes that we would merit great amounts of chocolate and jellybeans come morning. In retrospect, perhaps we should have roused all the relatives and gone running out with the flashlights. They’d have believed us then. On the other hand, I wouldn’t really have wanted to lead the charge against a seven foot tall legendary critter brandishing a flashlight…and the chocolate was good.
I once heard the Easter Bunny. I heard him running around the corner of the house as I was answering the front door on Easter morning. Then I heard the Easter Bunny slip in the mud and say some really interesting things.
In 3rd grade, while I was being fitted for glasses, I was told by my eyedoctor that nearsightedness was just caused by changes in the shape of my head due to growing, and once I reached my full height, I wouldn’t need glasses any more.
C’mon…where in the Bible does it say to decorate a pine tree near the winter solstice, so elves will come and leave you gifts? All the story needs is some freakin Rhinegold and an eye patch.
The Word of God is The Truth. Somewhere in there is a “Thou shall spend extravagantly to celebrate the birth of Jeeeeeeeesus.” Maybe that’s what the three wise men are for: One brings gifts, one brings the tree, and the other has a copy of *The Night Before Christmas * and a fruitcake.
I thought that was the origin of friends/family popping by on holidays when you have absolutely no room or food for them and the place is a smelly Sty. or manger…
As a kidm my dad bullshitted to me in a way which I can now perceive as very funny, but still not something I’d ever do to a kid…
He was always the wordsmith, and wordplay was a part of my childhood because of it. For this I’m thankful, but he used to deliberately mangle words and expressions in the hope I’d pick them up and provide free entertainment (and usually I did):
Lebanese restaurant: Lesbian restaurant
Manila folder: Vanilla folder (this took ages to be disabused of as it makes sense)
Terminate: Ternimate
Berserk: Beresk
White caps (on ocean waves): white cats
and many more…
“Dad, is ‘parallel’ one L or two?”
“Three”. (technically right, but…)
There was a kid named Tommy Birdock on the next street who had a speech impediment. My brothers told me it was because he had a tooth growing out of his tongue.
Of course, there’s always the sub-catagory "bullshit people want to be told: sales trainees being told “its your money those customer have. Why don’t you go get it?” Or military recruits buying into “pain is just weakness leaving the body.”
And then there’s the job and love rejection rationalizing, of which my favorite allegory is: “one day a little boy opened the front door and there on the other side of the screen door was a dog smiling at him. He asked his mom if he could keep it, but she said no. This made him sad, but she explained that the dog would go to other doors until someone let him in. The mom didn’t believe this, the boy wanted to believe this, and the dog had no choice but to believe it.”
Happy Birthday! Turning 30 wasn’t hard for me. Hopefully you’re not like my aunt, who never left her bed on her 30th birthday. Turning 35 was the harder birthday because I’m on the downslope to 40 now.
BS I was told:
To have sex, the man has to lie on top of the woman for 12 hours. This was told to me by a friend when I was 10, whose mother told her.
Every week, my brother and I went with my mother to do the grocery shopping in a nearby town. We had to drive past a huge playground to get to the store and we always begged my mother to take us there. After being asked numerous times, she got fed up and told us that the playground was “invitation only”. We never asked again. I was in my late teens before I realized she was lying. :smack:
Oh, that reminds me of one that I, my mother and my grandmother all pulled on my son. I suspect we’ll do the same to my daughter.
When he was little, he used to love to go with us to “The Toy Museum”. Y’know: The one with the backwards “R” in the name. Kept him from nagging us to buy him crap for years, yet we could follow him around and write down everything he especially liked and get it for him later.
My attitude is “Religions don’t exist in a vacuum” and I know that my spiritual calling is a pig’s breakfast of different traditions, myths, and good-ol’ well, this works for me.
