i'm always baffled how intelligent people can be religious. i know a couple who are both biologists and go on religious retreats.

I know evolution is fact, not a truth. Truths change for everyone. Facts don't change unless supplanted by newer facts. (of course, there are those that misdirect, lie, obfuscate words to fit their truths). Most religions belief that evolution is misdirected scientists who are in 'it' for the money.

Because the one thing human society will never run short of is gullible idiots.

The specific reasons are legion, but boiled down, it largely amounts to people just going with the confirmation bias and agency inference that seems most intuitive to them because that's the sloppy way in which the human mind works.

It works well until it doesn't, in my experience. If you have a sufficiently supportive religious community and enough dumb luck then adhering to the abstractions of religious faith works better than the alternatives, and due to the sunk cost fallacy and general inertia (especially social inertia), the pain of changing your beliefs is greater than the pain of not changing them.

This equation, and the underlying abstraction, fails if you think too much or have too much bad luck. Then it's exposed for what it is, and you either double down on the failed epistemology of religious faith, or you find a better epistemology.

That is when the pain of changing is less than the pain of not changing. I reached that point, many others have not. I really don't judge or disparage people who have not, in fact I'm genuinely happy for them -- so long as they have a respectful live-and-let-live attitude toward my not sharing their beliefs, it's all good.

The problem of course is that some of them don't have a respectful, humble, live-and-let-live attitude, and then hilarity ensues.

Because for many people there’s no conflict, and in fact Darwin himself was not an atheist.

Besides that, the Theory Of Evolution leaves many unanswered questions. Studies in epigenetics suggest that randon mutations and natural selection can not fully explain evolution of species.

Depending on your concept of God, the question of her existence is unanswered and probably unknowable.

I 100% know that evolution is true. I don't believe in God/gods, either. But belief in evolution and belief in God/gods are not necessarily mutually exclusive. It's belief in Young Earth Creationism that precludes believing in evolution.

Considering that evolution which is scientifically proven and religion which is nothing more than a fairy tale and has no scientific proof to speak of it amazes me that so many people still believe religion. Where I live the religous are the overwhelming majority.

Fear of death. Most humans can't accept the inevitability of death. So they cling to their religious beliefs, in the hope of an 'after-life'.