Well, you could say the same about a non-religious person. Tell them about God, and they would flat out deny it. Why? Because they believe their own worldview to be correct, and that God is incompatible with it. It's fair for them, so it should be fair for religious people to do the same. To them, religious reality is as axiomatic as scientific fact is to non-religious people. It doesn't matter which side is technically correct - they both believe their own point to be true, based on the very complex cultural and social factors in their upbringing. I don't think a religious and non-religious person are physiologically any different, they just make different choices about their beliefs.

I'm not saying science is equivalent to a religion, but rather that a religious worldview is just as unshakable as a non-religious worldview.

Okay I don't want to get into debate of religion as the topic here because that never ends well. But in general more open minded people are willing to give anything a shot, and more importantly, they're willing to say "You know what, I was wrong in thinking that you need large engines to get more horsepower. I didn't know you could add turbos or have direct injection to increase power without increasing engine capacity."

A closeminded person would say, "Yeah, so what if it shows it has 200HP for a 1.8l engine, that's still not real power. I mean, you're using turbos and DI unlike me. I'm using `pure` engine power".

[I shifted gears (no pun intended) to something else because in my experience debate/discussion on religion NEVER ends well)

Well, I didn't intend to get in that sort of debate either, so that's fair. Yes, I definitely agree that open mindedness is a big difference between those two groups. However, I bet it's just a matter of closed-minded people tending to prefer A, and open-minded people tending to prefer B, rather than A creating close mindedness.