PLANO, Texas (CBS Houston) – Marketing masterminds behind the latest Dr. Pepper advertisement may have had the best of intentions in mind, and perhaps hoped to elicit a few laughs when they posted a picture of the ad on the soft drink’s Facebook fan page Thursday night.

What the image – which bore the caption “Evolution Of Flavor” and featured a human evolving from monkey to man after tasting Dr. Pepper – instead inspired a backlash from the creationist community.

As of Friday morning, the photo had garnered over 3,500 comments, and was shared nearly 2,400 times, due in large part to the controversy created by its imagery.

Though many took a jocular approach in their contributions to the ongoing conversation, others were far more serious – and seriously offended.

“I love Dr. Pepper but hate this photo,” one Facebook user against the ad was quoted as saying. “Forget evolution … Jesus all the way!”

“Well, there goes my support for this company,” another reportedly added.

A third religious commenter referred to evolution as “just a theory.”

Supporters of Dr. Pepper – and evolution – quickly fired back.

“For the religionists in this thread: Who are you to deny God His [t]ools? Just because you can’t wrap your tiny minds around evolution doesn’t mean it’s not a law of the universe,” another commenter replied. “Y’all [sic] argue against reality and against the things God created. Do you know better than God? Because I look at [fundamentalists] denyin’ [sic] God’s works all around them.

The commenter added, “Jesus was a cool dude. I’m frightened by his followers.”

Almost 25,000 people showed their support of the ad by clicking “like” next to the image.

Others still took to the comment thread to marvel at the debate sparked by the image.

“So, I find it mildly hilarious that this ad has caused such a storm on both sides of the fence,” one woman said. “It’s soda, people!”