As was prophesied in Revelation, the second angel shall pour out his bowl of wrath into the sea, and it will become blood, and every living thing in the sea shall die, and atop that sea shall be an omelet bar. That apocalyptic inevitability—and the war between believer and nonbeliever—was kicked off this weekend by none other than Carnival Cruises, whose participation in Armageddon was widely assumed to be systemic, as a floating symbol of man’s sinful sloth and gluttony. But with its new “Come Back To The Sea” Super Bowl ads, Carnival Cruises has angered creationists, who believe the company is promoting evolution in its invitation to come devolve into daiquiri-numbed blobs who simply drift about looking for more food, like the mushy, single-minded organisms it says we came from.
The issue stems from the ad’s voiceover, which borrows a speech that President John F. Kennedy made before the 1962 America’s Cup—a nobler age, when presidents still recognized the importance of praising boats. “I really don’t know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it’s because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it’s because we all came from the sea,” Kennedy said, really feeling his muscle relaxers that day. “And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea—whether it is to sail or to watch it—we are going back from whence we came.”
Carnival used this speech to advertise its cruise vacations, which finally reunite man with the sea by putting a giant luxury hotel in between them, to let the sea know how much better he is now. From up high he pukes into that sea, and the salt in his puke is the same as the salt in the ocean. They are one again.
As with Always’ #LikeAGirl commercial, Nationwide’s “Hi, I’m A Dead Kid” ad, and basically every other spot that was being watched simultaneously by millions of people looking to avoid loved ones by ranting on Twitter, “Come Back To The Sea” stirred some controversy online. Many chimed in to let Carnival know they weren’t happy, blaming the company’s plunge into eternal darkness on everything from their obvious atheist agenda to turning their back on the light, the way that is Kathie Lee Gifford.
So Carnival Cruise Lines just ran an ad during the Super Bowl quoting Kennedy on evolution. Apparently their atheist. Nice to know.
— Steven Miller (@slmiller222) February 2, 2015
Meanwhile, Ken Ham—a fundamentalist who helps run the Creation Museum, and who preaches the literal biblical interpretation that the world is a mere 6,000 years old—blasted Carnival for its “ludicrous” beliefs.
“Don’t you just want to go on one of their cruises so you can stand on the deck of a big cruise ship, look at the sea, and contemplate your accidental beginnings—and perhaps worship the sea, because it gave birth to you!” Ham asked sarcastically on his Around The World blog. “Oh—and really, you can spend a lot of money on such a cruise, but because you evolved from the sea and are just an evolved animal, and when you die you won’t even know you existed—so you won’t even remember the cruise—so what’s the point anyway? You just evolved to have an ultimately meaningless existence!”
Ham’s post has already been met with counter-arguments from people like Friendly Atheist’s Hermant Mehta, who suggested Ham try reading from a library that “consists of more than just a single book,” and those who have been on one of these so-called “meaningless” cruise, who suggest Ham try the chocolate fountain—which is its own earthly reward.
Carnival has yet to respond to the Creationist backlash, though it’s worth noting that the cruise line already made it perfectly clear that it sails through a bleak, godless world, back when it trapped all its passengers in a floating prison of their own shit.
[via The Hollywood Reporter]