@Rockhead,
I think you are right.
Trying to reason with this guy about this topic went nowhere. An additional note: he was a father to two sons, one who died when he was one or two years old when they still lived in Africa. I remember him telling me his son died "of a mysterious illness." As far as I could tell, he was given no medical diagnosis of why the little boy died, and he accepted it as a mystery.
Can you see this taking place in the US?