Without Ambition

Lack Of Ambition

Philippians 2 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

Philippians 2

1 If you have any encouragement from being united
with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any
fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and
compassion,

2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded,
having the same love, being one in spirit and
purpose.

3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain
conceit, but in humility consider others better
than yourselves.

4 Each of you should look not only to your own
interests, but also to the interests of others.

5 Your attitude should be the same as that of
Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature[a] G-d,
did not consider equality with G-d something
to be grasped,

7 but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

9 Therefore G-d exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,

10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord, to the glory of G-d the Father.

12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always
obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more
in my absence—continue to work out your salvation
with fear and trembling,

13 for it is G-d who works in you to will and to
act according to his good purpose.

14 Do everything without complaining or arguing,


Here is a passage that gives me pause. There's
nothing really complicated here, no difficult
metaphors or anything like that. Just the friendly
instruction of the Apostle to do a couple things
that are completely opposed to our human nature.
Don't be controlled by selfish ambition and don't
complain and argue. I don't know about you, but
these habits don't come easily and naturally to me.
Seems to me that we all find it really easy to
have something to complain about.

'Being one in spirit and purpose...' is a worthwhile
goal, but not so easy to attain. All you have to
do is look around and see all the different
denominations to realize that being one in spirit
and pupose goes against human nature. There are
some significant differences, but there are alot
of quibbles about non-essentials. It kinda'
reminds me of marriage. I doubt that there are
many marriages that have not had their share of
arguing and complaining. If not between spouses,
then between siblings. It's the way we are, but
not the way we ought to be.

Just this morning, I was complaining to my spouse
about the situation that we're in. The funny
thing that I notice is that when she wants another
pair of shoes, it's not a complaint, it's a *need*
but when I want to make changes, I'm complaining,
again. If you have to get up and go to work
every day, you've probably had a boss that looks
at the world that way. What they want, is a *need*
and what you want, is a complaint. It's a subtle
form of manipulation. The Apostle lumps it all
together by using the word 'everything'. In the
greek, 'everything' means 'everything'. I don't
know what it means in Chicago spanglish.

So argument is a vital force in human nature. We
want to argue about... everything. The nature of
my objection to the doctrine of evolution is more
than the human need to complain and argue. There
is subtle manipulation involved. I don't respond
well to that.

It's the goal of ambition that's tough to resolve.
It works from an ego that craves being served.
It's a real beast. It's centered on self. As far
as I can tell, there is no cure, except to lay it
down as an act of will, in order to serve a higher
goal. Worship has to find an object. And there
are only two choices for the object of worship
when you boil it down. There is self-directed
or there is G-d directed worship. The direction
of your worship will determine the direction of
your ambition. It's very telling to watch how
that finds expression. The Apostle provides good
insight into the situation.

Then, to wrap it all up, he neatly places everything
under the soveriegnty of G-d in verse 13. He
points out that there is a design that is central
to our being. It is the purpose of G-d. That's
a powerful statement, because it makes the point
that if there is something that you have a problem
with, you ought to surrender to the purpose of
G-d. And it goes to the center of the creation vs
evolution conflict. They say, there is no design.
Christian theology demands that G-d has told us
directly, that there is a design and a purpose.
This suggests that we ought to get with the
program, unless we want to argue with G-d. This
brings ambition into the proper frame of reference.

At this point, it seems almost silly to even argue
that there is design in the universe. But as long
as there are those who want to argue against it,
then the show must go on. For people like me, it's
really not an effort so much as it is the pursuit
of pleasure. One of the things that I enjoyed in
past employment life, is the challenge of
debugging electronics hardware and software. Not
that I was the best at it. Just that it was one
of the more enjoyable parts of my job. All the
while, playing around with ideas of how to do the
same thing another way. Looking over the ideas
of the skeptics and the evolutionistas provides
plenty of fodder to find support for the evidence
of design. In many ways, they are some of our
best friends, since they throw in alot of ideas
that look like they ought to be debugged. It gives
me something interesting to do in my later years.
Not that I'm any good at it. I'm just trying to
put together the puzzle.

There is no specific reason that I choose ReMine's
book other than it's one of the books that I have
at hand. I bought it with the intention that it
would provide a platform for futher work on my own
to possibly play out some of his ideas a little
further. I think that his perspective is original.
There isn't any particular goal in mind. You work
with what you have at hand.

There is another timeframe specific problem with
the idea of human biological evolution, at the
molecular level. It has to do with the mechanics
of human reproduction, that do not correspond with
the model of recombination and mutation. In the
female, the egg cell differentiates and develops
to maturity within the first nine months of
pregnancy. It's known as as oocyte and you will
find that information here, under the heading
'Formation':

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oocyte

That implies that there is a narrow corridor of
inheritence that is guarded from the process of
recombination and mutation by the mechanics of
human sexual reproduction. Genetic information
is passed to the oocyte from the moment of
conception and that genetic information is stored
in an egg cell -- oocyte, within the first nine
months, and has little or no opportunity to
recombine and mutate until it is fertilized. Then
over the next nine months, it repeats the process.
The mechanism seems to be designed to prevent any
genetic change in the egg cell. That implies that,
at least in the female side of the gene pool, there
is a solid barrier to recombination and mutation.
It's something that I perceive as a failsafe
mechanism to *prevent* evolution. If the reproductive
cell is genetically fixed at conception, then that
provides no timeframe at all for the possibility
of recombination and mutation. Probability of
evolution again, drops to almost zero. Sexual
reproduction appears to be designed to prevent
evolution. That would not exclude normal genetic
variation that the molecular mechanism supports.
Normal variation is why no two people look exactly
the same, except for identical twins, siblings who
share a common egg cell. In other words, egg cells
are made at the time of conception. That factor
allows zero probability of genetic recombination
as time passes from one generation to the next,
because there is no timeframe for evolution to
take place, by that mechanism, on the female
reproductive side. Evolutionistas have a serious
problem trying to explain this away, because by
design, at the molecular level, sexual reproduction
prevents evolution. Animal breeders are likely
to be able to see right away that, in practice,
this is exactly what happens. Did anyone ever
hear of 'inbreeding' or 'linebreeding'? It's used
to 'fix' a certain characteristic in a genetic
lineage.