Refuting Creationism - The Giant 50 Foot Snake Deity, Vasuki, of Hindu Mythology - The Fossil Evidence?

Vasuki indicus,
Nāgarāja (Serpent King) of Hindu mythology

AI-generated image (ChatGPT 5.4 Thinking)

A colossal prehistoric snake, Vasuki indicus, may have rivaled the largest snakes in history, stretching up to 50 feet long. Fossils from India suggest it was a slow-moving ambush predator and part of a widespread ancient snake lineage.

Credit: AI/ScienceDaily.com.

50-foot ancient snake discovered in India may be one of the largest ever | ScienceDaily

An open access paper published in Scientific Reports in 2024 describes an astonishing giant snake from India which, in life, may have reached up to about 50 feet in length. Ignoring, for the moment, the inconvenient age of the fossils, its existence bears an eerie superficial resemblance to the mythical Hindu serpent king, Vasuki.

Imagine the unbounded joy and celebration there would be if creationists were finally presented with fossil evidence that appeared to confirm one of their favourite myths, giving them something more tangible than the written-down stories of Bronze Age pastoralists.

Strangely, though, there have been no such celebrations over evidence which, superficially at least, appears to echo Hindu mythology. It is almost as though creationists understand perfectly well that religious myths are just that — myths — and that any evidence which appears to support someone else’s mythology can be dismissed without a second thought. Unless, of course, it happens to be their own mythology, in which case coincidence, metaphor and wishful thinking are suddenly promoted to “evidence”.

Named by its discoverers Vasuki indicus, the snake is estimated to have been between about 11 and 15 metres long, making it one of the largest snakes ever known. The genus name comes from Vasuki, the great serpent king of Hindu mythology, often depicted coiled around the neck of Shiva. Vasuki is one of the mythological nāgas associated with serpent worship, including the Hindu festival of Naga Panchami.

However, as a supposed source of the Vasuki myth, there is one small snag: Vasuki indicus lived about 47 million years ago, in the early Middle Eocene, a mere 19 million years after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction that ended the reign of the non-avian dinosaurs. That is long before humans, long before language, long before writing, and long before any culture capable of inventing and transmitting religious mythology existed. Like all religious mythology, the stories of Vasuki arose much later in human history — not in the Eocene swamps of India, and certainly not as a folk memory of a snake that had vanished tens of millions of years before there were any people to remember it.

The fossil vertebrae of Vasuki indicus were discovered in the Panandhro Lignite Mine in Kutch, Gujarat State, western India, and described by Debajit Datta and Sunil Bajpai of the Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India. The remains consist of 27 mostly well-preserved vertebrae, some still articulated, from what appears to have been a fully grown animal. The authors identify it as a member of the extinct madtsoiid snake family and suggest that it represents a distinctive Indian lineage of large-bodied snakes. ([EurekAlert!][2])

The accompanying Springer Nature news release, reproduced by EurekAlert!, is available here. The original Springer Nature press release is accessible to accredited journalists only.

Creationism in Crisis - How The Milky Way Was Formed - 12-13 Billion Years Before 'Creation Week'

A visualisation of the Milky Way galaxy, with the stars that Khyati Malhan and Hans-Walter Rix identified in the Gaia DR3 data set as belonging to Shiva and Shakti shown as colored dots. Shiva stars are shown in green and Shakti stars in pink.

© S. Payne-Wardenaar / K. Malhan / MPIA

Researchers identify two of the Milky Way's earliest building blocks | Max Planck Institute for Astronomy

Between 12 and 13 billion years before creationism's little god decided to create a small flat planet with a dome over it in the Middle east, where the only people to notice were simple goat-herders from the Bronze Age, natural forces were creating the Milky Way galaxy out of two smaller galaxies that astronomers have named Shiva and Shaki.

The discovery was made by two scientists working at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany who have identified the components of two proto-galaxies that merged to form the Milky Way, by combining data from ESA’s astrometry satellite Gaia with data from the SDSS survey. The astronomers have published their findings in a highly technical paper in The Astrophysical Journal and explain it in a Max Planck Institute for Astronomy news release:

Who are Shiva and Shaki? Shiva and Shakti are two fundamental concepts in Hinduism, representing aspects of the divine.

1. Shiva: Shiva is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is often referred to as the destroyer within the Trimurti, the Hindu trinity that includes Brahma (the creator) and Vishnu (the preserver). Shiva is also known as the god of meditation, yoga, and arts. He is usually depicted as a yogi, adorned with snakes and a crescent moon on his head, with a third eye on his forehead representing wisdom and insight. Shiva is often associated with asceticism, but he's also a family man, as he's married to the goddess Parvati and has two sons, Ganesha and Kartikeya.
2. Shakti: Shakti is the divine feminine energy and the primordial cosmic power in Hinduism. She is the personification of the creative energy of the universe. Shakti is often depicted as a goddess, sometimes alongside Shiva, and sometimes as an independent deity. She represents the dynamic forces that move through the entire cosmos. Shakti is considered the mother goddess, the source of all, and is revered in various forms such as Durga, Kali, Parvati, and others.

In some philosophical interpretations, Shiva represents the male principle (Purusha) while Shakti represents the female principle (Prakriti), and their union is seen as the basis of creation and existence. This union is often symbolized as Ardhanarishvara, a composite androgynous form of Shiva and Shakti, depicting the inseparable nature of masculine and feminine energies.

Astronomers have identified what could be two of the Milky Way’s earliest building blocks: Named “Shakti” and “Shiva”, these appear to be the remnants of two galaxies that merged between 12 and 13 billion years ago with an early version of the Milky Way, contributing to our home galaxy’s initial growth. The new find is the astronomical equivalent of archeologists identifying traces of an initial settlement that grew into a large present-day city. It required combining data for nearly 6 million stars from ESA’s Gaia mission with measurements from the SDSS survey. The results have been published in the Astrophysical Journal.

The early history of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is one of joining smaller galaxies, which makes for fairly large building blocks. Now, Khyati Malhan and Hans-Walter Rix of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy have succeeded in identifying what could be two of the earliest building blocks that can still be recognized as such today: proto-galactic fragments that merged with an early version of our Milky Way between 12 and 13 billion years ago, at the very beginning of the era of galaxy formation in the Universe. The components, which the astronomers have named Shakti and Shiva, were identified by combining data from ESA’s astrometry satellite Gaia with data from the SDSS survey. For astronomers, the result is the equivalent of finding traces of an initial settlement that grew into a large present-day city.

Religious Hypocrisy News - Child Abuse Widespread in Most UK Religions

Inquiry report finds child sexual abuse in most major UK religions | IICSA Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

As though to prove my point that religions provide excuses for people who need excuses, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has concluded that child sexual abuse was fequent in most major uK religions, and that the normal response to allegations was to defend the organization at the expense of their victims.

In a report released yesterday, they say:

Child sexual abuse has been found in most major UK religions… with some found to have no child protection policies in place at all.

The ‘Child protection in religious organisations and settings’ report examined evidence received from 38 religious organisations with a presence in England and Wales, with the figures provided to the Inquiry about known prevalence of child sexual abuse unlikely to reflect the full picture.

Religious organisations play a central and even dominant role in the lives of millions of children in England and Wales. The report highlights the blatant hypocrisy and moral failing of religions purporting to teach right from wrong and yet failing to prevent or respond to child sexual abuse.