My sad prediction: Few will read past the title page. Maybe as far as the first paragraph.
Why? Because you're implying that them being wrong about everything is possible. This generates an ugh field of overwhelming strength.
Likely results: nothing you say in the paper will be taken in by your intended audience. Worse, they will read as far as that first paragraph and then fill in the blanks with their received preconceptions of atheists. If they discuss your apostasy amongst themselves, it will be in terms of said stereotypes, and nothing to do with anything you've actually said, written or thought, ever. Perhaps I'm being unduly pessimistic ...
The document is worth having for yourself. I expect some will read it and actually take you seriously. This will make it worth it.
Edit: I've just realised the above falls afoul of "plausible is the opposite of probable" - a compelling story of a possible outcome is strictly less probable the more details you add. Still feels like an outcome of sufficient likelihood to be prepared for, though. (Am I wrong there?)
What is the objective you're trying to achieve with this document ?
Neither are nor my close family members have never been religious, so it's hard for me to put myself into your target audience's shoes. Still, if I did something radical, like joining a snake-handling Pentecostal cult; and if I chose to announce my decision by way of a 10-page, single-spaced document full of scholarly references; then I would expect my family members to feel hurt. They'd expect me to talk to them on a more personal level.
Those are just my two cents, though.
My immediate gut reaction (to your first paragraph) is that you're trying for a deeply profound style, and that makes me want to stop reading. I understand exactly why that feels like the right style for an account of apostasy, but it's infinitely better to be as basic and plain-spoken as you would be in a casual conversation. (After all, you're not trying to win a prize for style or satisfy the requirements of academics, you're trying to help your friends to see and respect where you're coming from.) Edit your first page until you can read it out loud to a stranger and have it sound like natural speech.
If you want to know how religious people will react to it, it might be helpful to get feedback from religious people.
Very well written piece. I enjoyed reading it.
The parts discussing the evidence on the historical existence of Jesus are likely to be the most provocative parts, and they are practically the first thing you discuss. I understand that this was an important part of your de-conversion process, but if there were a way you could eliminate or delay this discussion, I think it would be helpful in preventing your intended audience from being turned off by the writing.
That's inspiring, and beautiful. You should be very, very proud of your rationality, adherance to the Socratic method, and your determination to create and maintain a happy marriage and beautiful life. I know you will achieve your goals. You deserve to.
I found it pretty readable and interesting, though most of what was new to me was how you were treated by a lot of the religious people you know. I was surprised that Jesus not making more of a splash in his own time was that important to you.
How are you and your wife handling your children's (ir)religious education?
I was going to recommend Julia Sweeney, too.
I hope you make your final version available as HTML as well as PDF so I can link people to it - thanks!
I have a low attention span but I read through your entire document and when I reached the end I was surprised because I had the impression I was still reading the preliminary part. So, for what it's worth, I found it easy to get through.
Upvoted for honesty, and for conscientiously documenting it in a very readable format, and for courage. Of course, we who already choose to read LessWrong are not the intended recipients of this message -- we're the choir, and don't need to be preached to. We've arrived at this forum from many different backgrounds, along many different paths. You came from Roman Catholicism. Eliezer came from Judaism. Some LessWrongers were never religious at all.
Your message is not to us, but to your own friends and family, who remain active believing Catholics. By co...
Good read. I think that's a description of an intellectual journey, if is not so similar to EY or Luke, maybe is the beggining. Joining in the Bayesian Conspiracy put you in a good path. Rationalists should win.
I enjoyed reading that. I spotted a few grammatical errors, so I will offer this: if you make this available to me as a Google Document and give me commenting rights, I will go through it within the next week with my editor hat on and mark up everything I think should be changed. Even if you don't want to do that, good job: that was a fairly enjoyable read and will probably do what you want it to as is.
Don't take this the wrong way at all, but I did not read all of it; it was not interesting enough. (I read three pages) But that is due primarily to a complete disinterest in religion, nothing else. It was very well written, and I suspect that my apathy wouldn't apply to your target audience.
For what it's worth, congratulations on taking the time to write all of this out so that you can explain to people. It is imaginably a very difficult thing to do for someone in your situation.
Thanks for the honest reply. You are probably much smarter/informed than I am (not stated in a negative/sarcastic manner at all; I really mean that).
I guess I expected you to explain what specifically convinced you...
I stated why I didn't do that in my document. I consider the aspect of relating to friends/acquaintances, mutual understanding/sharing, and simply coming out more important than risking 1) no one reading it to understand/empathize, 2) people getting upset, and 3) unintentionally kicking off about 100 email debates.
...this is clearly an important part of your life, you should be taking it at least that seriously.
Agreed, and so I invested two years of most waking thoughts on this. How does social psychology play into whether or not a theistic being is real or not? Also, see the apologist's turnstile (I'm the "John" mentioned, just as a neat tidbit).
On that note, do you express consistent dissatisfaction with your fellow Catholics on a weekly basis? I hardly expect that many/most/the majority of them expended as much mental and emotional energy into the study of religious apologetics as I did. If you don't accept my apostasy as legit, do you accept the beliefs of most of your fellow Catholics as such? They know less than I do and yet are (at least based on my surroundings of extremely devout (in the dedication-to-Mary-daily-mass-and-adoration-novena-saying sort of way) Catholics) more confident in their beliefs.
...the default explanation for conversion, i.e. largely-unconscious far-sighted social pragmatics...
Could you provide some more specifics? Like I want to sin or don't like my friends or what?
I think you'd have to be at a Michael Vassar or Nick Tarleton level...
And are they Catholic or non-religious? If non-religious... do you accept their apostasy?
I wouldn't be surprised if smart Catholic readers of your explanation for your apostasy felt the same way...
That very well may happen.
...it was an easy read and kept me engaged enough that I didn't compulsively switch tabs or take a bath or whatever, which is a good sign.
Why thank you.
While I'm not smart enough to do it (yet), I would love to see a Bayesian analysis (since you mentioned it) on the probability that a god who values the salvation of souls in the highest degree would require the subject comprehension and intellectual dedication you demand to order to believe (or not). Or require the words of a book spread on foot as the only means toward knowing which specific god is real. Or even that given one true god, the other fake ones would also use the means of an inspired text to spread knowledge of themselves.
Or lastly, that the reading of another fasle god's text could prevent someone from having an inkling whatsoever of being wrong for the rest of their lives, even while having full awareness of competing gods/texts. This is the equivalent of saying that a human (for that's what the authors of non-true-god texts are) like Dan Brown could prevent billions of potential Christians from being so due to their encountering the DaVinci Code before the Bible.
ETA: Oh, and I meant to ask: feel free to provide links/references to what you find most convincing concerning theism.
This is sort of off-topic, but from the blog post you linked to:
...The implicit assumption behind this tactic is that criticizing or denying a religion should require more knowledge about its teachings than joining it. But in reality and in logic, the opposite should be true: Assent should require a larger amount of evidence than denial, if only because the person who makes a positive claim always has the burden of proof to support it. An atheist is perfectly justified in saying that they disbelieve a religion because they know of no evidence in its favor,
Edited 3/4/2012: I shortened up the summary a bit and add the following update:
Thanks for the lively comments. As a preliminary summary of things I've found quite useful/helpful:
It's almost one year later, and I've finally made tangible progress on some of the input suggested in my post about being non-religious in a primarily religious environment. That is, I have a near-final draft of a "coming out" statement I plan to share with a majority of those who know me.
I was involved in two religious communities for about six years of my life (SPO and CCR). Two years post-deconversion from Catholicism, many of them still do not know I no longer believe in god. This can make for awkward interactions for myself, as well as for my wife, who's still a believer. She thought it would be helpful if everyone was on the same page, as did I.