Yes, that's what I was trying to say - "atheists exist" is a sufficiently threatening thought to block all further consideration.
(And, of course, Catholic apologetics is some of the most sophisticated in Christendom.)
Idea that occurs to me: Do you think you could do a single-page summary? There's a chance they might read it and not just go "ah, an atheist - tl;dr". Then they can have the ten-page version if they like. "For the full version, see my blog."
Gotcha. I'm still not sure my specific readership will say, as you put it, "An, an atheist -- tl;dr," but I'll keep thinking about this. I hoped it would be concise (not necessarily 1 page, but not 10, either). As with most of my things, it ended up much longer than I expected. Thanks for the continued input.
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.