I've never been greatly impressed by his intellect, but I would definitely say that he is of at least average intelligence. The field I work in doesn't suffer individuals of significantly poor intelligence (IT/sysadmin), though I freely admit that isn't really saying much. There are some folks to whom the practice of thinking rationally is just... alien. Once you reach somewhere around forty, thinking patterns get pretty firmly set, too.

Additionally, the guy is an english-as-second-language speaker, so it might not have been a 'fair trial' to him. I'm trying to be generous (to him) considering I pretty much agree with you.

This hypothesis has little to do with whether or not he is religious.

He's openly atheistic, in fact.