What made me an atheist is ironically... creationists. Back when I first came across them while doing school work back in High School I was smart enough to be able to see how bad their arguments were. After that I got curious and googled it, and eventually found Aron Ra's Fundamental Falsehoods of Creationism series, and from there Darkmatter2525. It got me thinking, and looking for answers. 3 years later, I officially deconverted.

I feel most religious people are simply victims of childhood indoctrination. Such ingrained beliefs are not easy to shake. I'm quite a rational individual and it still took me 3 years to sort it all out. The only religious people I have a problem with are those that willfully deceive others to spread it, or to harm others.

Easy for me: Mom is a secular humanist and Dad is agnostic. As a child, I found my friends’ theism akin to believing in Santa Claus, and yet some
of them were quite bright. It has always baffled me.

By incredibly intelligent I would think you mean the top 2 percentile or would you narrow it down to the top 1%, 2% being exceptional but 1% being incredible? I think it is harder to be religious if you are intelligent because religion is full of illogical contradictions but the critical deciding factor in believing in a religion is the amount of gullibility and delusional tendencies a person has but certainly being stupid would be a real asset for being a believer.
I'm not gullible or delusional and I am in the top 2 percentile so being an Atheist was a simple matter of rejecting the religious dogma my parents and society had tried to program me with since birth, I did that at 13 years of age because the holy book my family used said I could freely choose at that age.
As for my feelings towards religious people, it's about the same as I feel towards any stupid person who is clearly delusional, about the same way I feel towards a rabid animal in the woods.

1: I found contradictions between religious teachings and reality. Decided reality was better then make-believe.

2: I generally feel pity for the religious as they are wasting financial, emotional, and time resources on a system that falsely promotes faith (belief without evidence) as a methodology to determine truth (things that can be demonstrated with evidence). I also share a great deal of lack of respect for the religious as they are generally the ones how make decisions without recognizing the importance of facts over faith in decisions including political, economical, and environmental as many fail to recognize the superiority of science over fiction in making informed decisions, may lead us (civilization) to an less then optimal outcome.

3: Depends on how you define "intelligent" A person could be very "book smart" but ignorant in the ability to recognize truth from fiction.

God told me to do it It probably makes more sense to not judge intelligence as a linear scale, it comes in many varieties. We're all geniuses in some respects and stupid in others.

When i was kid I loved to watch science shows. Even though my parents were christian and i had to go to church every sunday, religious explanations always seemed made up. I was 15 when i came to the conclusion that science done a much better job explaining the world. If god existed it would be easy for him to prove his existence to the world.

The fact that I haven't seen anything (aka no evidence of God) is the main reason. Going back, my father was an atheist too - only I didn't find out about it 6 years after his death. He always taught me to speak the truth, help anyone who's in need, use my mind over my emotions, respect anyone and everyone regardless of the circumstances (now there are some I cannot respect - like the wigged orange.. anyway..) He also taught me that no human was greater than another - and that I should show mercy/understanding to those who even try to harm me. He never tried to influence me over religion (or atheism in his case), but never turned away my requests due to my curiosity "Take me to the mosque, take me to church..." There was a time I got lost after I lost him, I was only 14 - I wanted to believe there was "something" out there and that there was an afterlife. I wanted to believe my dad was no longer in pain (which he isn't - but it's not groupie with virgins either) , at the same time having to face too many bs at a very young age - I started to drift away from the idea of "a greater power". I was never "religious" but I always have been curious. Even today - I will enjoy discussing (in the most gentle way possible) to find out more, to understand how others think.. Without going into so many details - within 17 years, I now joke "I'm 99% atheist, 1% agnostic" I can never know anything for sure - after all I'm just a human with a little over of an average IQ - but instead of praying for miracle, I choose to take action and get sh!t done.

How I feel religious people? Honestly they don't bother me. I don't hate them, I don't hate anyone. I am and always will be an advocate for love and respect. As much as any religious story is just batshit crazy made up stuff for me - but if someone I love finds comfort in believing such thing - they can have it their way. As long as those people around me accept me for who I am, I will do the same. I just don't have tolerance for those who assume they're the best (aka they worship god and are pure as.... I don't know what's pure in this world anymore..) and I'm a horrible "devil-worshiper merciless piece of sh!t" just because I don't believe in what they do.

The other day I met with a new friend I met on the FB page of Atheists Union Dallas - she had the perfect example. I recently had friends who drifted away from me because I told them I was an atheist. The reaction I got was "BUT HOW COME!!! HOW CAN THAT BE?? YOU HAVE SO MUCH LOVE IN YOUR HEART!?" - it sounds more like "You don't like Brussels sprout? Well then, I can no longer be your friend!" same thing.

I won't argue about what's real and what's not... Our life span is too short to break hearts (or minds?)

Intelligence and religion... I don't know. I'm too much of a mamabear persona and if I could - I'd go give a hug and show love to everyone on earth. Therefore I don't want to say such thing as "only idiots believe in religion". I mean I have friends who I can openly discuss religion (and mind you, these are friends that go to church every Sunday etc) and we are on the same page about showing mutual love and respect, regardless if you believe in something or not, regardless of your ethnicity, sexual preference, background, insert any man made label here as well as discuss science/philosophy. So I guess it can go together?

I swear I came out of my mama an atheist

All the hypocrisy and lies put me off religion + the fact that I could never understand why someone who is professing himself to be so great and powerful needs to be worshiped.

Just because you are intelligent doesn't mean that you have any common sense, you can still be like a horse with blinkers.

I consider myself reasonably inelligent. Maybe I'm not. I bought a house just before a very predictable crash, ignoring sound advice not to do so. I have also struggled with addiction - an insult to my intelligence. Smart people are not immune to believing what they want to believe and shutting out contradictory voices.When skeptics act smug and superior, their valid points turn into white noise. I suggest practically noone has led life without harbouring some delusion.

Being an Atheist I always tell people when they start spouting religion at me. I fully believe people have the right to follow whatever brings them inner peace as long as it causes no harm. I have been told several times by the "religiously enlightened" that I am going to Hell which is moronic since I don't believe in God ergo I don't believe in Satan.

First of all let me say that i have met a number of extremely intelligent and enlightened religious people. Among these were a number of Jesuits and two Rabbis. And those were just the people who identified that they were believers, so it could be that there are many more such religious, cognitively intelligent, and emotionally intelligent people. "No one size fits all" is the human reality.

As for why i became whatever i am, rejecting all forms of organised religion, my parents were Holocaust survivors who, after arriving in Canada in 1948, changed their stated religion to Protestant. Like some other Holocaust survivors, they did so ostensibly to protect me from the next Holocaust.

But the obvious contradictions i saw in the fact that all my relatives were practising Jews while i was told that we weren't motivated me to develop my own spiritual context and foundation. A perspective which has also evolved over the past 50 years.

If they are very intelligent and religious, then they are really good at rationalizing their beliefs. Either that or they stop thinking when it comes to religion.

My Awakening to the inadequacy of religious Dogma as a way of understanding the world occurred around the age of 11. At that age I began to notice the ignorance of the natural world my parents possessed, and how their world view was wholy dependent upon argumentd from authority and adherence to cultural norms. No true insgight on the natue of our reality can be gained when shacked by our mind-forged manicales, we must be free to question everything guided by our logic, the only tool humans posses to extract deeper understanding. Religious Scientists/intellectuals can be understood as people who have compartmentalized rationality from religiosity as a necessity to maintain their passion for intellectual pursuit, while maintaining the social acceptance from their community