What was said:
"Faith is a form of delusion"
The distortion:
"You're saying I can't be an intellectual because of my faith based beliefs."
Intellectuals can be deluded. You are deluded, if you believe something that is not true, is. Whether or not you are an intellectual, well...
I am on the fence as to whether some god thing may exist or not. I don't see any good evidence to think so. I am, though, pretty certain that Bible God is fiction. The logical paradoxes alone are enough to put an end to that for me. You are deluded on that basis. You think something that is not real, i.e. Bible God, is real. The definition of delusion.
I would say though: You can't really be an intellectual if you can't construct a logical argument, or really all that honest about others' positions.