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| Adult Monarch Butterfly |
Some people feel much better about Creation if the six 24-hour days are stretched out to six epochs. This allows a blending of Creation and evolution. Many have felt this was an ideal solution, but I have found a terrible flaw in their reasoning.
Of course, as any world religions professor (atheist) would be glad to propose, there are endless versions of Creation, some of them gross and disgusting. How this clarifies the situation is beyond my comprehension, but it is often said, to justify a modern mytho-poetic counterpart to what they call the Creation myth.
The foundational flaw is naturally the power and efficacy of the divine Word, which is not dependent upon time or the approval of man. Addressing Creation with science is like pounding tent-stakes with a manual lawmower. It can be done, awkwardly, but why even try?
I was planning a butterfly garden for myself and others when I went over the basics in my mind. When my mother lived with us in New Ulm, she spotted milkweed growing nearby and snagged some caterpillers for us to watch. We obtained a large glass jar, installed the caterpillers on a stick, and fed them milkweed leaves daily. The following shows what happened.
The ever fatter caterpiller weaves a jade coffin with golden nails, far more beautiful than the photo above. Here is a close-up -
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| The so-called golden nails really look metallic. |
He turns into liquid and reconstitutes himself as a Monarch butterfly. The wings show through and he emerges, ready to lay eggs on milkweed, the only food for the babies to eat as they grow.
Here is his problem with hybrid Creation. Lacking milkweed, the eggs hatch with nothing to eat. Some butterflies can use various plants for their young, but not Monarchs.
Monarch Notes:
Q. What do monarch butterflies eat?
A. Adult butterflies eat nectar and water. Sometimes liquid from fruits. Larvae eat only milkweed.
Thus the Monarch life cycle requires milkweed immediately available.
But, the rationalist objects, God would have created the milkweed first and the butterflies second, taking millions and billions of years.
Then we have hundreds of thousands of other objections, since all life requires other life-forms above and below them on the food pyramid.
No, this does not prove Creation, which is revealed by the Word. But we can reverse engineer Creation - in a feeble way - and see these hundreds of relationships before our eyes.
The Monarch's life cycle is a miracle and that is God's work. We may see it any summer day, anywhere, but it is still astonishing to watch:
- Egg
- Caterpiller
- Tent-maker
- Goo - where the caterpiller turns inself into liquid!
- Butterfly.
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| Milkweed pods |
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| Milkweed in bloom |
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| Butterfly Weed is closely related to Milkweed, but not appealing to Monarchs. However, BW does attract other butterflies and is just as colorful as this photo shows. |
