Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment.

Matthew 6, do good, the Lord’s model prayer, fasting, treasures in heaven, God and Mammon, do not worry.

Pope Francis has called for a rewriting of the Lord’s Prayer, saying the current translation gives God a bad name and, essentially, does not give the devil his due.

Described in the Bible as a prayer taught by Jesus, the Lord’s Prayer is viewed in the catechism of the Roman Catholic Church as “the summary of the whole gospel.”

In a TV interview December 2017, Pope Francis said that the line asking God to “Lead us not into temptation,” or in Italian, “non indurci in tentazione,” should be changed.

Jesus spoke in Aramaic and this prayer in the gospel of Matthew is originally written in Greek, and it says:

και μη εισενεγκης ημας εις πειρασμον αλλα ρυσαι ημας απο του πονηρου and not bring us into temptation(or testing), but rescue us from – evil.

The Roman Catholic church of France has changed the translation of this verse to “and do not let us fall into temptation” and somehow Pope Francis thinks this would improve on what God has said.

Matthew 5, the sermon on the mount, the Beatitudes, salt and light, fulfill the law, murder, adultery, divorce, oaths, an eye for an eye, love your enemies

Matthew 5

Matthew 4, the Temptation of Jesus, calling of the first disciples, early ministry.

The tempter appeals to Jesus to show His power over the elements, Jesus answers back with scripture.

The tempter is wising up. Now he is using scripture to tempt Jesus.

Jesus answers back with scripture.

Finally the tempter appeals to Jesus vanity. This always works, except this time. Jesus answers back with scripture.

The prophecy in Isaiah 9 begins in doom and gloom, but promises the great light.

And Isaiah 9:6-7 is two of the most wonderful verses in all of scripture.

Matthew calls it “the Kingdom of Heaven, the other Gospels “the Kingdom of God”. It means the same. “My Kingdom is not of this world”

Wither Bitcoin? Up, up, and away, crashing or banned?

Bitcoin was first issued in March 2010 with a value set at $ 0.003/unit.

In May 2010, 10,000 bitcoins were traded for 2 pizzas in Jacksonville, Florida.

Since then the bitcoin price has gone up and down, mostly up, but five times it has gone down drastically, sometimes crashing by as much as 80 percent.

This year it has had a meteoric rise and is now at $18,600 or about six million times its original offering price.

Bitcoin is anonymous trading between a willing buyer and a willing seller, totally safe and untraceable, an ideal vehicle for money laundering and transfer of money to terrorists and allies alike. It is also the vehicle of choice for ransomware.

So who is keeping custody of the chain of transactions to keep the bitcoin safe and secure?

This is what one might call the ultimate revenge of the geeks. The inventors of bitcoin let the geeks mine more bitcoins as a reward for keeping complete records of all transactions in bitcoin since its conception (heavily encrypted of course). They only had to solve a hashing algorithm made more complicated for every new transaction. In the beginning it was not very difficult, but now, since one has to find all chains of custody for every bitcoin since the start, and they are distributed worldwide it becomes more and more a drain on the internet and computing power in the servers.

It is now so bad, that even though there are only 17 million bitcoins in the world today, to keep track of them and mine some more is now consuming 1/700 of the total electricity generated in the world, or about 35 TeraWatthours. At a production cost of about 6 cents per KiloWatthour it would come to about 2 billion dollars to maintain 17 million or over a hundred dollars per bitcoin in electricity consumption alone.

It will only get worse from now on. While mining of new bitcoins are getting more complicated exponentially, the issuing of new bitcoins will become stagnant and will stop around 30 million, when it will consume about 60% of the world’s electrical energy.

The Greens will not like it. Bitcoins already belch more than 17 million tons of CO2 into the air annually, set to double every two years.

On the other hand , it is transactions that are free of the tyranny of the one world banking system.

This is unsustainable. People will stop maintaining the chain of custody of all transactions and the scheme will collapse.

When?

Who knows?

Matthew 3, John the Baptist prepares the way and Baptizes Jeus.

This is most probably where Jesus was baptized in an arm of the Jordan.

Matthew 2, the visit of the Magi, flight to Egypt, the massacre in Ramah, return to Nazareth.

The Magi were the scientists of that day, combining astronomy, astrology, calendar keeping and natural sciences.

This passage is particularly interesting, with verse 15 put in the middle of a passage full of the most wonderful promises for Israel, ending with “a woman shall encompass a man.”