Atheists= intelligent?

[Edwardo Piet]

Well I think the human brain is very capable of compartmentalizing. Some true believers can be sublimely intelligent in all sorts of subjects, but incapable of critical thinking when it comes to matters of their faith.

Yes, I think faith is bigger than religion. And I agree its often compartmentalized. I think religion is a huge part of faith. I don't think you can have religion without faith (unless you're faking it) but I think you can have faith without a religion. You can have faith in superstitions/pseudoscience etc. Astrology for example, or in my previous case, 'The Law of Attraction' utter bullshit.
Also, from what I've heard atleast, it seems as though Stalin, for example, had a kind of a dogmatic, anti-faith sort of faith.

I am afraid that we are mixing up different notions.
When RD speaks about Faith I understand that he just presents it as another expression of the belief in supranatural phenomena and particulary in God.
Now, superstitions,Destiny,astrology,prophecizing of future,and so on are all various faces of the same coin based on Faith.
So in my opinion as an atheist you can say that you believe that this or other rational thinking (scientific) theory is right or wrong but you can not say that you have faith without religion because they are one and the same thing.
What belongs to Stalin he thought of himself as a Genius of humanity ,and was in fact hailed as such in the Soviet Union and by commies abroad ,he was in fact a smart guy who outbrained his colleagues but his faith or anti-faith believes are by long thrown to the dustbin of history.

Well, I think this is indeed a semantic thing, if you are using 'religion' as a synonym for 'faith' But I don't think they're identical. I agree that it is hard to mark the difference. But I think its just a case of degree perhaps. Hard to clarify maybe. Or maybe just some very slight difference.

Well if it wasn't for the fact that I know some dowsers that don't believe in gods I'd agree with you.

Perhaps surprisingly, leo could have a fairly good point here.
I think unless you (I'm still talking to you josef) want to call dowsing a religion, and atheist dowsers religious believers. Then this could be called atheists who have faith. Unless you don't want to call it faith either. In which case what would you suggest it should be called?
But this is just one example of the probably very rare exceptions of a atheist who has "faith", if you actually agree it could be called that.