There will probably be a lot of parallels between how people find creationism and how other people find many other conspiracy type movements like flat Earth, anti-vaxxers, climate science denial, moon landing conspiracists, and plasma cosmologists. The common theme seems to be a tight knit community that creates a bubble where false ideas are protected from criticism and ideology is more important than facts.
That was exactly my experience, both with YEC and ID. It wasn’t that this data was explained or these arguments contested by YEC/ID, but they were just unknown to the proponents. That was fairly shocking and telling.
That is really messed up. Their thing seems to be to convert people to their peculiar reading of the Bible, especially Genesis. I guess after a long discussion about how Noah got all those dinosaurs in the Ark, etc. maybe they will finally get around to saying something about Jesus.
Not too long ago I was walking through a college campus on my way to an appointment and there was a preacher with a booth set up by the sidewalk and he was preaching. He wasn’t the best apologist. He said “scientists want you to be atheists” (like science = atheism). He said something like, “my grandmother wasn’t a monkey.” There were about 30 students around, many of them laughing at him. He did field questions, which he answered in an angry, sarcastic tone. I thought, wow, for some of these students, this “evangelist” is the voice of Christianity. That thought made me angry. I was tempted to say something but thought better of it, and I had to go somewhere anyway. He had creationist pamphlets, but I didn’t pick up a pamphlet to see what organization or church he was with.