Post religious stress disorder

Have you ever heard of anyone trying to disprove the Lord of the Rings? Or Game of Thrones? Aesop's Fables?
I have continued to study the Bible and examine it very carefully, but I have started to ask myself why. I have found numerous contradictions and falsehoods, the worst of which is Matthew 11:25. (Jesus literally thanks God for hiding his message.) So why do I continue down this futile path of studying what I know to be inherently false?
The truth is, I see a lot of others who have transitioned beyond religion that do the same thing.
It has been very difficult to move beyond the religion that I accepted as fact for so long. I'm not even sure I could have comprehended what it's like to not think I have someone in on my every thought. I still see things in an in-between state. I still see both sides of the Christian/non-Christian coin. I can have a conversation with a theist and see how they view things. Maybe it's overactive empathy, but I'm more inclined to think it's the years of thinking that way hanging around in my mind like Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused.
This may be the reason why I have continued to study.
I still need to assure myself of what I know. That the religion I once accepted is false.
Transitioning beyond religion is not just a flip of a switch. It's not an on/off situation, it's a quantum state of being both or neither at the same time. I also think it's something most people will not understand.
In general, I think people prefer to have a stance on one side or another and have trouble being anywhere in the middle because it means they don't fit with either side.
That's where a problem lies for me. In my normal everyday life I don't have to justify where I stand on beliefs, but with my family it won't be that way. In fact, I don't really believe any amount of study on my part will change how they will receive this news. I honestly worry that when I tell them, the news will be met with disappointment. Is it strange that as an adult I still fear disappointing my family?
I think a large part of my studies and even in writing this is exploring my position so when this conversation happens I know where I stand.
I'm losing the drive provided by all this post religious stress disorder though. It gives me hope though, that I won't grow into an old man reading the Odyssey, trying to figure out why I ever really believed it in the first place.

What will everyone think?

I have only told two people about my recent transition in faith. My wife and later a coworker who is atheist. My coworker was quite surprised when I told him what I had been through because he knew I went to church faithfully and even though he knew me during the entire process, he didn't know it was happening. It was easy to open up to him because we interact every day and I already knew he was on the same page.
I haven't told my other coworkers, let alone the members of my church where I went. I'm most apprehensive about telling my family though.
I know my family will love me no matter what, but they will still think of me differently once they know.
I already saw how they reacted to my uncle's coming out as atheist and I have a cousin who is gay and probably feels the same in many aspects. They wont ostracize me and I don't foresee being cut out of any wills, but they will be genuinely concerned for my soul.
They will look for opportunities to minister to me and they will probably see misfortunes that fall on me as God trying to get my attention. I fully understand these feelings because I have felt them for others. I don't even feel like its wrong for them. I don't like the idea of putting undue stress on them though. Especially my parents.
The Bible says:
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
I wonder everyday if what i am doing will benefit my children far in the future, and i hope i am, but i also view their shortcomings as my own. My parents were excellent examples of the essence of Christ in my life. I know that when they read these words they will wonder where things went wrong. I hate the idea that they might take these things quite hard as parents. They may even blame my uncle as if he had an influence on my studies even though I learned all this in an attempt to reclaim him for Christ.
Even though I see no reason to believe in things beyond this life, I know my parents minds will not change, and I have no desire at all to try to change them. But they will have heartfelt concern for my spiritual well being as well as that of my family.
My parents have always been adamant that I should study scripture and learn it for my own edification so my faith was my own. How will they feel when they learn that the very book I based much of my life on has lead me to disbelief when I studied it with more discerning eyes? 
The rest of my family will feel a similar concern at this news. I'm honestly glad I have a family so concerned with my well being on every level. I consider myself exceptionally lucky in that respect. But my 'coming out' will result in reservations on their part as well.
I have cousins in a very wide age group. Will any future family event include a warning about me being 'out there' and to take what I say with a grain of salt. Or maybe they wouldn't want me to be around their children in a format which would have been fine before this transition.
I'm not out to convert anyone or lead them away from faith but still our differences could lead to unseen rifts, which is unfortunate to say the least.
Of course, in the end this is all conjecture because I haven't told them yet.
Along the way I even wondered at one point if they already knew all this and kept up appearances for the sake of their children, but I don't think they could keep up a lie for so long. And for that exact reason, I know I cant keep this a secret forever either. At some point, they will know.

First brave step out

Until about eight months ago the only person who knew I was going through a theological transition was me. During the time leading up to that I played in my church's praise team and participated in a lot of church events.
I remember specifically one of the more active members in my church asked me how my relationship with God was. I'm not much for lying, but I didn't want to come out and say "I'm trying to figure out whether God really exists or not," so I told him about the things I was doing in the church. He told me it was easy to get caught up in doing things but not really progressing spiritually. He went on to invite me to a small group which I declined, but I was impressed with his ability to perceive the way I skirted the issue. He was actually quite right. I wasn't growing spiritually, I was relearning reality.
I did struggle with some things along the way. The biggest one might have been my relationship with my wife.
My wife is the nicest person I have ever met. She is amazing in so many ways and is absolutely my balancing force in life. When I'm stuck in zig, she suggests zag. When I think black, she reminds me of white. No matter what, she is always there for me though.
During my transition I felt like I couldn't say anything to her. I'm the one who fed her knowledge about why the creation story was true. She was a huge encouragement in my return to faith. I had no desire whatsoever in sending her down this crazy path I was on.
The problem was I spent quite a bit of time studying and analyzing everything I was learning and I'm not big about talking about work which meant that the deep meaningful conversations about nothing and everything she was used to us having were conspicuously absent.
It was obvious to her that I was being unusually silent.
To complicate things more she was pregnant and I know she knew I was hiding something but she didn't know what. I'm sure a million things went through her head and she would ask me to just talk sometimes and my brain would strain under the enormous weight of my secret.
We were on a long drive one day. The ride was fairly silent because the radio was low to keep my son from waking up and I was sitting in the driver's seat trying to build up the courage to tell her what I was going through.
I remember looking over at her pregnant belly and she said "So.... do you want to talk about something?"
I felt like I might throw up. I had felt this way many times in trying to bring this topic up. I have the ability to think very strategically and remain calm in the most grave of situations, but telling the woman of my dreams what I was going through was scary.
I was scared she might have doubts about our whole relationship. Or that this might be something about me she couldn't accept. Or she just wouldn't understand. We were about to have a baby, how would she react to my change of heart? Would she even see me as the man she married?
I got the first few words out one at a time with an unsure pause between each one as if I was going to just stop talking. I finally got the first sentence out. Then a second.
She was attentive, calm, not upset at all.
I spent about 30 minutes talking about the entire process before we arrived at our destination.
It was a relief for both of us. I had prefaced everything I said by telling her I had no desire to change her beliefs and I still don't. I love that she is more free spirited than I am. She is my window to the fantastical and I would never want to suppress that.
I couldn't believe how well the conversation went and it definitely reopened a flood gate of communication between us and I was relieved at least one person knew my secret and having told her I was a little sad that I had held it in for so long.
I also explained how it changed my view of our marriage, changes that I am constantly evaluating through new eyes.
I don't think of our marriage as a three-way promise between my wife, God and myself anymore. It's just my promise to her and hers to me. I can be assured that every loving action comes from myself, and not out of some spiritual obligation.
For someone who is quite disconnected from faith, the difference may seem irrelevant, but I assure you it is massive. It comes with freedoms and fears, but I know in the end my love and commitment to my wife is my own. Can it be shaken? Maybe, but my commitment to her goes well beyond what I could hope to  understand in such a short lifetime. There are no stories of courage without fear and I truly look forward to the development of our story every day whether it's boring or intensely exciting. That's what courageous love is all about.
I am with her because I sincerely choose to be.
Since then she has continued to be amazingly supportive and understanding and I have continued to be open with her about what's going on with me.
It really opened my eyes to how homosexuals must feel and I very much related to a ted talk covering just that issue. It was my first step out of my closet and it felt great.
But how would everyone else react to my change?

The quest for answers and my uncle's soul

I should preface this post by saying when I began my search for the reasonable answers I was a young earth creationist. Part of why I believed this was because the Bible said so. By tracing the lineage of the age of the lives recorded in the Bible you could estimate the earths age at over 6,000 years. With that knowledge I filtered the information I learned about geology, biology and evolution through that lens.
Some might say I was naive, but I was quite knowledgeable about the theories Christian scientists presented to support the young earth claim. Such as reptiles growing for the entirety of their lives. If people lived to 600 years old, it makes sense that lizards could grow to dinosaur sizes with that kind of life span. I was aware that DNA breaks down over time and of these discoveries of soft tissue in dinosaur bones which, to me, proved they were younger than 10,000 years (the theory at the time for how long it takes dna to break down but i cant find a reference for at the moment.) I looked at examples of the rapid developement of layers in the earth's surface as examples of how they could be formed on the timeline I believed to be true. I considered the Bible to be absolutely historical fact, inspired by God, the Word of God, perfect, and that evolution was only brought about as an alternative to the creation story.
I remember watching a documentary where a scientist said he loved digging up fossils and seeing how the evidence supported his theories. I thought to myself that it's the same process for Christian scientists, just a different theory, and that it was logical that secular scientists would look for the evidence to refute God's creation and highlight it.
I started my search to give my uncle logical understanding for faith by listening to debates about creationism vs. evolution on youtube. I know men much more intelligent than myself who believe the creation story so i needed to take the time to study and gather the information they had to offer as proof for its validity. There are a lot of videos though and they range from absurd to thought provoking, the most recent of which that I listened to was Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham.
These type of talks brought me down rabbit holes so deep Cpt. Nemo would envy me, but they pointed out some very serious flaws with my theory. How did Noah fit all those animals on the ark? Ken Ham talked a lot about "kinds", a word I cant find a solid definition for anywhere as far as taxonomy is concerned and is pretty vague on creationist websites, but thats not what I believed. All he was saying was that evolution was true, just on a much shorter time scale. I refuted any evidence of "microevolution" because I knew it was just evolution on a shorter time scale. It's important to add that with a "God" variable, there are an infinite number of possibilities. (I have a book at home about geocentric theory published by a Christian group.) So maybe God didn't stop creating. Maybe coyotes "evolved" more teeth through breeding with wild dogs.
I also was quick to point out that examples of evolution like the peppered moth only showed animals switching to a trait which they already had. They were black sometimes at the start, why should we be surprised when we still have a black moth at the end? It's not like it developed a turbine engine on its tail or a telepathy sensor or even a third antenna.
I also listened to talks surrounding theology, philosophy, and atheism to be able to approach my uncle in a well rounded way with understanding of where he was coming from. In the end I knew it would be God who turned things around for him though.
Sometimes these talks were infuriating. Most atheists doing any sort of interaction with christians were borderline rude, and to be fair a lot of christians they spoke with believed on the word of the Bible alone or because of the words of others which were blatantly untrue, which even aggravated me. If the Bible is truth it should match up undeniably with reality no matter how far fetched it may seem.
A little more than a year ago, i watched a show called the Athiest Experience. The host mentioned a website of outdated or false creation arguments. They were specifically talking about moon dust on the show if I remember correctly.
I had personally used many of the arguments on this site as they had been taught to me. Seeing them now on a "not to use" list was.... dissapointing and confusing. It meant that I had unknowingly lied to others in support of my beliefs which didnt sit well with me at all. Did anything I knew about creationism apply at all any longer?
Even more troublesome to me was that the christian theories had changed many times even in the last decade. My mom once told me one of the things that made the Bible so special was it's relevance and timelessness,  but this was not timeless. The christian theories evolved as quickly as science was making discoveries because it had to. For every new evidence against creationism, there must be an answer. Even recently at the discovery of gravity waves predicted by the big bang theory, the next day I read an article saying scripture predicted it first.
The more I studied the more problems I encountered and that lead to an ever changing stance as to how existence came to be through creation, but I didnt like it.
I felt like a child trying to explain a crime scene formed of liquid paint to a police officer, but I was both the child and the officer. Everything I believed seemed fuzzy and formless and my faith was at war with my mind.
Its hard to explain how difficult it was for me. I hadnt told anyone, not even my wife, that I was studying all these facets of the creation story with the intent to reinvigorate the faith of my lost uncle and I felt like I couldnt share it because I would never want to shake anyone elses faith. That was the complete opposite of my intended goal. All I had at this point was that my most of what I thought I knew was false, and there were no good answers to my questions.
My faith held but was what I believed evident beyond the pages of the Bible?
Then came evolutionary biology...

In the beginning

To say I grew up in a Christian home is putting it quite mildly. My dad was a preacher for a large portion of my life. He would help churches grow and then we would move to another place that needed his spiritua]l guidance. I remember him being very well liked. His sermons always got laughs along wigh teaching a lesson.
My mom usually directed the music at the churches my dad pastored and worked other jobs during the week. She still loves music and leads at a church to this day.
I can probably count the number of times I missed sunday school before I was a teenager without taking off my shoes.
I had many "mountain top" experiences, or spiritual highpoints, in my teenage years going to Christian youth conferences and mission trips. I truly believed durring that and acted accordingly.
After high school I became more interested in girls than religion, but I never lost faith. I went to a Christian college and regularly played in worship bands all through those years. Eventually I stopped going to church all together, I got married, and I lived a life as someone who believed that Jesus was the savior of my soul, and everyone knew I believed it, but I rarely went out of my way to share that in a meaningful way with others.
Eventually I was divorced and I truly regained my faith. It didnt happen immediately,  but over time. I got remarried, had kids and attended church regularly. I even got back into playing with the worship band.
This was the time period of my life where I belived the most of my own volition.  No one forced me to be there, I wanted to be at church. I activly participated in the functions and was more forward about my faith to others.
Then I went to a family reunion about a year and a half ago.
With few exceptions my family are geniune Christians. They go on mjssion trips and share their faith readily with others. Beyond that, they go out of their way to help others less fortunate. So, as you can imagine, there is a lot of prayer and talks about faith durring these retreats.
One family in particular was conspicuously missing from the retreat. I learned one evening around a camp fire that the reason that family was missing was because my uncle had decided he was athiest.
My heart sank for him and his family. I wondered why he would do that? Why would he put his family through that? How would it affect the faith of his kids? He had searched for some time to be a minister. He even took jobs at churches in the hopes of making it onto their leadership team. This was quite a shock to me. We prayed for that family that night.
I thought at the time that he must be mad at God because life wasnt going how he thought it should, or that someone was misleading him. I felt genuine concern for the spiritual well being of his family and I felt I needed to do something. I was even a little mad at him for being so foolishly cavalier with the eternal consequences to his family.
When I returned home I saw a post on my newly outed athiest uncle's facebook talking about his new unfaith. I was upset by it, it just seemed so wrong to flip from belief to non-belief. I responded to his post, and a few more with open ended discussions about why he would make such a big change, but honestly, I wasnt really listening to his side. I was only arguing against it. I was applauded by others for standing up for my beliefs, and hoped, along with others in my family, that my uncle would realize his mistake and come back around. I feared for the souls of his family.
I decided I would track down the "proof" my uncle needed to bring him back to faith. I would search for the bread crumbs that must exist in this world that God created. I specifically prayed at the time,
"God, never let my logic overide my faith."
Then I started down a path that would change my outlook. On everything.