by Brian Yamabe on January 3, 2012
художници на икони
Concept: A quiz game where you compete against others. My wife loves playing “Words with Friends” (Scrabble) on her iPhone. You would select the category you want to compete in and challenge friends or random users. There would be leader boards, achievements, and the ability to post victories to Facebook and Twitter. I was going to confine the questions to theology, but it doesn’t make sense to limit myself; although I would probably start there. With the answers I planned on linking or embedding additional resources that are related such as sermons, podcasts, or videos.
Viability: The Table Talk Radio app which I wrote awhile back still gets downloaded and there are a lot of quiz applications. There might be a lot of head-to-head quiz games as well, but it will come down to the execution and I think the category idea and linking/embedding additional resources are differentiators.
Status: This one will require quite of bit of technology which I haven’t used before (a motivator for me) and also seems to have the most commercial viability of any idea that I currently have. Looks like I’ll be headed in this direction until something new distracts me 
by Brian Yamabe on December 22, 2011
That’s a part of an excerpt from Penn Jillette’s book that’s making the rounds in the tech blogs I read (via Daring Fireball). Here’s the full excerpt:
There is no god and that’s the simple truth. If every trace of any single religion died out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.
Since this is an excerpt, I’m not sure whether Mr. Jillette is arguing his case from the standpoint of all historic facts being lost or if he’s arguing from the standpoint that history itself is reset (people lauding the quote seem to take it both ways). Here’s the thing if all historic facts were lost could we prove that George Washington lived? Or if history were reset and George Washington never lived could we prove that he existed? See, Mr. Jillette’s argument is a fantasy, but it sounds so authoritative that people who want to dismiss religion gravitate toward it.
Christianity does not live outside of history. Something that is most obvious at this time of year. This is when we celebrate our savior’s entrance into time and history and His becoming incarnate to take on our sin and pay the punishment for it so we might have eternal life. Mr. Jillette’s fantasy question implies that only science is based on objective truths. Well, so is history.
