Thank you for your thoughtful reply: I also find the lack of intellectual curiosity baffling, and I also blame religion/religious ideology that discourages questioning "authority/authorities" and defaults to a truly hostile position on "Doubting Thomases" when scepticism is the basis of the scientific (and creative) model.

Have you seen the movie "The Invention of Lying" with Ricky Gervais? It's and interesting exploration of this topic, and how badly people look for unlikely answers to avoid seeing people they love experience pain, and how people believe these stupid things as the least painful choice. Sometimes, I think that people do the best they can?

Perhaps this is too kind an explanation, but although some folks are lunatics, plain and simple, some of these folks I've known and loved my whole life and they've shown me respect and kindness. I have to believe that this is the limit of their curiosity/capacity or imagination or ability to hold conflicting belief systems before head explodes on some level.

It's really hurting them and the rest of us (they don't see it) but it's where they are. They respond to the negativity and the anger and the years of revulsion at the culture (e.g., the evangelical culture, in my case that I don't like at all and can't hide) - and then, the REACHABLE PEOPLE, like I was, become so turned off that...well, you know the rest of the story. Disengagement or worse.