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.