I come from probably the most atheistic country in the world (CZ)
Yet, I had made this bashing comment about bible.
IMHO anyone can believe in whatever they want. Christ., Islam, anything.
I (and I would say every friend of mine) don't care about what do you believe in, but if you publicly preach some religion, prepare to be made fun of, or take a stand and try defend it your religion with arguments. But no blind faith here.
(Personally, if I like some religion it's Shinto.)
I think it's orthogonal. There are tons of smart people who believe in God. (Knuth has already been mentioned.)
If God wanted, He could make himself apparent to everyone. Clearly that isn't the case; there is room to doubt or to believe no matter how smart or accomplished you are.
The Bible is a very specific version of a creator that the world already gives you enough evidence to disprove ten times. You could argue that the possibility of the Bible being divine is not zero, but it’s less than any epsilons people care about. The reason it endures are cultural, which is clear from its correlations with geography and demographics.
