Five or six young Muslim men got up and began to walk out. As they crossed the large hall, I said ‘Excuse me, would you mind telling me why you are leaving?’ There was a long silence until one said, ‘You are offending us. We will not listen’. Soon after that another bunch left, and then another. ‘Won’t you stay and listen to ideas you disagree with?’ I asked. ‘My ideas may be wrong, so can’t you stay and decide for yourselves?’ But they left. Feeling offended was reason enough to shut out ideas that clashed with those they’d been taught to defend.
I left profoundly depressed at the state of the world – a world in which young people are trained by the religions of their parents to block their ears to any challenge – and so to new ideas. I am so used to open-minded disagreements that I took it for granted that youngsters coming to Oxford would relish a good argument and would welcome new ideas. Lots of them did but a large number of Muslims, and some Christians, did not. They knew ‘the truth’.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ten-zen-questions/201408/i-am-offended-i-won-t-listen