At work, everyone claims to be advanced intellectually and not closed minded and yet all they often insult anyone who might be religious as stupid/blinded/deluded etc.

Eh. I've spent most of my adult life in Academia so unfortunately I know exactly what you mean. I'm not religious myself, but while I may have more than a few things to say about religious organizations and the role that they should and should not have in society, I would never ridicule a person's spiritual beliefs, and I'm the first to say that atheists can be just as dumb and close minded as any religious lunatic.

Believe it or not, in certain circles I used to frequent I've even witnessed people questioning the intellect of Newton and Heisenberg, because they were Christians so obviously they couldn't have been very smart. I wish I were lying just for the shock effect, but it is true. Two of the absolute greatest geniuses humanity has ever produced, and some edgy idiot thinks he's better because they were theists. For the record, that was my wake up call - I realized then that I couldn't stand being around those fanatics any more and have since distanced myself from those people.

Most people are truly only open minded about minor variations about what they think.

Yes, so true. Especially many idealist types are often open to other opinions only if they differ from their own at the third decimal place or less. Anything above that and they are either enemies, or heretics who aren't true to the cause...