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.
Fair points. Did you read the document? Other than a handful, none of my footnotes are scholarly references.
Some of this is from a practical standpoint. I had coffee and dinner and lunch dates with many, many close friends/acquaintances to tell them in person. The community I was involved in contains some 500 people. I don't know if I can have such an interaction with all of them. I'll keep thinking about this point, though. Maybe this would be counter-productive.
ETA: Oh, and sorry... I didn't answer the main question. My primary objective is simply to inf...
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.