What is the Best Evidence for Creation?

Creationists are often accused of not understanding evolution. It's true that there have been times when I've seen Christians misunderstand some point of the theory. Creation.com actually has an article dealing with common arguments they believe creationists should not use. On the whole, though, I believe the average, non-scientist creationist understands evolution about as much as the average, non-scientist evolutionist. After all, many creationists went to public schools and were taught evolution along side non-creationists.

Still, the criticism persists that creationists don't believe evolution because they don't understand evolution. By the way, I think it's amusing that more learned evolutionists don't seem to have a problem with lay evolutionists not understanding their theory. Lay creationists are often told that they don't know enough about evolution to judge it; however, lay people who believe evolution are welcomed into the fold. There's never any concern about them not knowing enough about the theory to judge it. As long as someone believes evolution is true, that is sufficient evidence that they understand the theory!

I've personally been told many times that I don't understand evolution. In another forum once, I became frustrated with the militant evolutionists' insults and rude behavior so I decided to play a game. I started a thread called, “Let me show you how it's done.” On that thread, I pretended to believe in evolution again (I used to believe in evolution, by the way). Evos were asked to pretend they were creationists and ask me the kind of questions creationists would ask; then I would answer them the way I believed evolutionists should answer them. This wasn't a parody or an attempt to create straw men. I sincerely advocated evolution for a while. The point was to show them how a person could defend evolution without resorting to the usually tactics employed by most evos.

My time spent on that thread was revealing. First, many of evolutionists were shocked that I could cogently discuss evolution and give reasoned arguments why people could believe in the theory. In the end, though, some of them argued that I was only able to “parrot” the arguments I've heard evolutionists use but I still didn't understand them. They could not get past their stereotype that people don't believe evolution because they don't understand evolution.

Here's the other thing I learned on that thread: many of the evolutionists really didn't know how to challenge evolution. They had trouble asking questions from a creationist's perspective. I could tell that several of them had never even considered alternative explanations of the evidence or even listened to creationists' questions about the theory.

The funniest thing is there was one evolutionist (who posted under the name RJW) who tried to do the same thing (that is, he pretended to believe in creation). He quickly found that he couldn't answer even the simplest questions about creation and, at one point, even asked me advice on how to answer a question. I gave him some guidance but told him he had to answer it himself. I could tell, though, that he knew nothing about creation.

If a person truly doesn't know anything about evolution, I can see how evolutionists might not take his objections seriously. How would a Christian feel in a similar circumstance? Imagine if a skeptic said to me, “I think the Bible is full of errors.” I might say, “Really? Can you give me some examples of the errors?” The skeptic would sound foolish if he only said, “I don't know. I've never read the Bible!”

I watched online while these evolutionists displayed their ignorance of creation. It looked to me as foolish as the Bible skeptic who'd never read the Bible. It seems they were guilty of the same offense of which they accused me. They denounced something that they had never even examined.

I think Christians need to study evolution if they are going to aggressively challenge it. By that same token, if evolutionists want to advertise themselves as intellectually honest, they need to study creation. They should read first hand sources written by creation apologists and not the straw man caricatures built by evolution apologists. People who don't know the evidence supporting creation, or who don't understand some of the arguments used to support it, truly aren't competent enough to judge its merits. Indeed, how can someone have a credible opinion on a subject he's never examined?

I used to listen to the late Dr. D James Kennedy on the radio. He suggested a great exercise Christians could use when confronting critics. Before getting too far into the conversation, simply ask the person, “What do you think is the best evidence for creation?” You'll see quickly that many people who ridicule creation know absolutely nothing about creation.