Vatican, apologetics ministry at odds on evolution

The Vatican will be discussing the topic of evolution and faith in a conference coming up in March.

Vatican officials have stated that belief in God and evolution does not conflict with church teachings because one is a faith issue and the other a scientific issue. Yet officials have agreed to also include the topic of intelligent design -- but they say they will address ID a faith issue that is separate from science.

Dr. Terry Mortenson is with Answers in Genesis, an apologetics ministry that operates the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky. He says to believe in both evolution and the Bible is inconsistent. Mortenson points to the first 11 chapters of Genesis -- specifically Genesis, Chapter 1.

"The Bible says the earth was created before the sun, moon, and stars -- contrary to the big-bang theory. The Bible says that plants were created before sea creatures -- contrary to…evolutionary theory," Mortenson points out."And then the Bible says that there was no death before Adam's sin -- no animal death, no human death. But evolution says there were hundreds of millions of years of death in the physical world. So you have to ignore the details of the Bible to accept evolution."

But what about the scientific evidence? Is there evidence that supports creationism?

"Oh, there is an enormous amount of scientific evidence that supports that God created separate kinds of plants and animals," Mortenson replies. "The fossil record supports that, what we know about natural selection and mutation supports that -- and there's an enormous, massive amount of evidence in the geological record for Noah's flood."

According to ministry spokesman, the Creation Museum has some of this evidence on display.