Is there any proof God exists?

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I realize that is a tongue and cheek statement but ironically, per my current perception and definition of this three letter symbol named GOD, it is incredibly insightful.

I never found GOD in church. I've always found GOD within ME and in Nature.

Truly no words are required, and I do mean that literally.

Science now shows that we live in a connected Interdependent Universe named as Nature, generally speaking, and some folks connect to THIS Universe more than others, as human beings have a 'plastic' natured mind AND BODY, subject to environmental challenges, neuroplasticity, epigenetics, classical evolution, AND THE RESULTING HUMAN adaptations that can be overall positive or negative in effect and AFFECT.

HOWEVER, THE MOST IMPORTANT thing to understand for human well being in balance with the rest of NATURE PER WHAT I AND MANY PEOPLE INCLUDING the Gnostic reports of Jesus name as a similar metaphor for the living GOD of ALL THAT IS a continual moving and changing force, as an Interdependent RELATIONSHIP FOR ALL THE 'DETAILS' OR 'TREES' INVOLVED..

YES, TRULY IN THE CASE of human beings the most important part of that for basic survival, as a human being is the AFFECT PART OR MORE SPECIFICALLY EMOTIONAL AND SENSORY EMPATHY.

SADLY ENOUGH, as is the case, as a stereotype perhaps, is that most scientists are stuck in a specialized mechanical cognition area of mind, and literally do not more fully experience the emotional and sensory areas of life, simply, as ironically, the same science, overall, shows that a mind stuck in mechanical cognition represses those CONNECTING areas of the experience of human being with the rest of nature; most importantly HUMAN BEINGS.

I'VE Never met an 'empath', who didn't believe in the connecting force of this three letter metaphor for the Interdependent Relationship of ALL things.

However, I've met plenty of 'psychopathic', clergy type folks, who base their life on money, power, and control of other human beings in dominance FROM notching checks in belt loops for having sex with women as objects with no empathic connection to raking in cash from the congregation to buy a bigger house.

People who are successfully connected with other humans and nature, generally speaking, do not need material THINGS and subjugating power over other HUMANS to simply be content.

The greatest emptiness in life is not feeling a genuine oxytocin connection to other humans, and the proprioception sense that is now considered by some scientists as the 6th sense of humans that is sorely undeveloped in modern humans from A LIFE SPENT AS sedentary, IN NOT MORE FULLY CONNECTING to rest of the environment in ACTUALLY FEELING IT AND NOT JUST 'SEEING' IT WITH THE OTHER 5 SENSES.

There is a spectrum of human connection to other humans and animals ranging from the archetypal 'psychopath' or 'cold hearted devil' that tortures small animals and sets fires just to see the damage, to the 'angel' or human 'empath' WHO HAS SO MUCH LOVING connection to humans and animals that they cannot bear to look at those sad animal commercials, and cannot separate the feelings of others from their feelings.

I for one, live in the second area of life.

However, I for one, have the 'privilege' of moving to the first part that is truly what I understand as literal human hell now, with the loss of that connection precipitated by catastrophic multiple illness.

The first thing I noticed is my cat noticed, when I could no longer feel that oxytocin feeling when I petted him.

He could sense it and recoiled from my touch with his ears peeling back toward his head, in discomfort of the 'psychopathic' touch, of a human with no soul.

Yes, that connection to the rest of humans; that oxytocin/mirror neuron connection that I was blessed with extremely strong where my connections to people, INCLUDING TOTAL STRANGERS, IS like a never ending romance of love THAT was suddenly gone, with extreme and chronic illness taking it all away.

And in addition, my sensory connections to the rest of nature that were exquisite for me from birth, left my life experience as well.

And then I finally understood, what it was when people talk about not having heart, SOUL, and spirit, as I never realized it was possible to LOSE WHAT I HAD THAT WAS A REAL AND EMPIRICALLY MEASURED HUMAN PHENOMENON.

NO ONE IN SCHOOL, EXPLAINS HOW IN TECHNICAL TERMS ONE CAN LOSE WHAT IS UNDERSTOOD AS THE HUMANITY THAT KEEPS HUMANS CONNECTED, AND motivated strongly to socially connect as it is simply a feeling of bliss to connect with oxytocin and mirror neurons FULLY IN TOW.

BUT there is the other thing, and that is feeling comfortable in one's own skin, per the environment that skin lives and moves in that I never really had.

And now with the exercise of physical intelligence by way of ballet and martial arts style TOTALLY CREATIVE INNATE INSTINCTUAL, INTUITIVE MOVEMENT, I FEEL ONE WITH MY ENVIRONMENT, TOTALLY INTEGRATED IN SENSORY WAY AND ADDITIONALLY WITH MASTERY over my emotions in regulation experienced with control by me, instead of others.

I am impervious to the affect of a manipulating psychopathic-like mind now.

I literally float on land, in balance, as characterized by the onlookers who watch me move.

And truly that is like the mythological Ninjas or the primitive folks who can manage to stay invisible in rain forests that includes both humans and bonobos.

Yes, humans, overall, have forgotten and are increasingly forgetting the most important types of human intelligence, and that is simply connecting in a most blissful way to the rest of humans and nature that truly is PART OF the Interdependent Relationship of ALL of Nature, also known as GOD.

When one doesn't feel it, it simply does not exist in practical terms.

And I've been to both the Heaven of CONNECTING MORE FULLY TO THE GOD OF Nature or the absence of the FEELING CONNECTIon with IT, in the literal hell of no connection with Nature AKA GOD.

And after experiencing both, it is clear to me, why some folks here, will never ever experience the real GOD of Nature, more fully, particularly like our so-called 'ignorant savage ancestors and primitive peoples', WHO still do with never the need for a book of empty words, with no heart, soul, or spirit, inherently living AND NATURALLY LOVING IN THOSE WORDS.

'THE WORD' IS NEVER HOLY, UNLESS THERE IS A REAL HUMAN HEART, SOUL, AND SPIRIT WHO LIVES UNDERNEATH THOSE WORDS.


AND TRULY, COLD HEARTED, SOULED, AND SPIRITED PEOPLE WILL NEVER EVER CONNECT TO GOD LIKE THIS, until by WORK AND practice or BY real life miracle they are reborn again, AS SIMPLY A FULL HUMAN BEING, AS IS THE CASE OF WHAT HAPPENED TO ME IN REAL LIFE THAT I have been able to empirically document and measure.

The "Phoenix" is a human being more fully realized in metaphor, and not a myth at core, as many other MYTHOLOGICAL analogies for human ARE AT CORE.

AND THEN THERE'S the pressing 930LBS with my legs, REGAINING THE INNATE STRENGTH OF MY PRIMATE COUSINS, the dancing 'miracles' that generally speaking thrills my metro area, and the way 'all the YOUNG women' seem to 'love' me now, with complete women strangers telling me that to my face, for no other reason, than being impressed by my humanity as A male EXTREMELY EXPRESSED FREELY AS SUCH IN VISIBLE MOVEMENT IN BOTH FEMININE AND MASCULINE BALANCE.

I JUST REMEMBERED NATURE BY WAY OF HARD WORK AND PRACTICE, DRIVEN BY RELATIVE HUMAN FREE WILL, with the real life EMPOWERING EMOTIONAL elements of faith, hope, and belief in me GAINING TRUST IN THE REST OF NATURE AKA GOD ALONG THE WAY, WHERE NOW IT IS AT 100%.

AND yes, there are mystical elements that no words can FULLY describe, PER A level of human ecstasy that no words CAN ADEQUATELY EXPRESS, AND where there are folks who do not experience IT that it is almost just as well THAT IT is not discussed, as it is a totally different dimension of experiencing life in a bliss that goes a thousand times, at least, above, what folks describes as a human orgasm.

I can live there forever, now, If I like; however, I work to help others, on the more elementary parts of connecting to Nature AKA the Interdependent Connection FEELING PART OF IT, WITH SUCCESS, AT least in real life, as my spirit in connecting FORCE IS LITERALLY TOO POWERFUL FOR MOST PEOPLE TO MISS, when they FEEL IT EMANATING FROM ME IN REAL LIFE.

AND YES, THIS IS REAL, AS EVEN SCIENCE SHOWS THAT THE OXYTOCIN, AND MIRROR NEURON EXPERIENCE IS A TWO-WAY FORCE OF HUMAN CONNECTION.

AND truly, as science shows, THIS IS WHAT IS OFTEN BUT OBVIOUSLY NOT ALWAYS MISSING ON THE SPECTRUM THAT IS AS DIVERSE AS ANY OTHER GROUP OF HUMANS 'in the wild'.

But it never fails, and I am not directing this at you personally, as I think you feel it, AS you just DON'T NAME IT GOD LIKE I, AND THE PRIMITIVE FOLKS DO IN OTHER WORDS, LIKE GREAT SPIRIT OR WHATEVER BUT PEOPLE who do not feel it can rarely believe in it, as It is real when felt.

WELL, IT IS A GREAT SPIRIT, IN THE SENSES AND EMOTIONS MORE FULLY CONNECTED WITH IT, LITERALLY AS SUCH.

BUT THE KEY IS, IT IS NOT A NOUN, IT IS A CONNECTING FORCE ONE ACTUALLY EXPERIENCES AND FEELS BY WAY OF EMOTIONS, AND SENSES, AND NEVER EVER empty skeletons of words, alone.

Words are nothing, COMPARED TO THIS GOD I AM TALKING ABOUT, IN REAL LIFE BLISS OF CONNECTION, ALL AROUND, INSIDE OUT, ABOVE SO BELOW.

AND YEAH, SAME STUFF THAT THE GNOSTIC JESUS, is 'talking' about, WHOEVER THAT IS WRITTEN BY IN THE LINK BELOW.

IT'S A UNIVERSAL HUMAN THINGY, for healthy balanced folks.

And hell no, it doesn't require any frigging human instruction for it, just human flesh and blood that more fully works.

I sensed it looking over the river at age 3, like I had been here forever, before I could even speak.

Written language becomes my first roadblock to eventually losing this connection with 'GOD', AND NOW THE ROADBLOCKS ARE AS FAT AS ANY CAMEL I KNOW AND AS SMALL AS ANY EYE OF A NEEDLE I SEE. BUT I FOR ONE, TOTALLY IGNORE AND 'CONQUER' THEM.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/thomas.htm

TO KNOW GOD IS A LIVING FEELING THING;

NOT DEAD WORDS;

NEVER, EVER, NEVER.

And truly, in at least my case, this is WHAT IT FEELS LIKE IN SONG
TO COME ALIVE FROM

STONE..

REBORN AS HUMAN SIMPLE AND TRUE like a 'GREEK GOD' OR 'MUSE', IN TRUE EFFECT
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY

AFFECT.



And REALLY, the quickest litmus test, for me to know, whether or not folks experience GOD, whether they name IT THAT or NOT, is how they connect to other human beings or animals, in both words, SPEECH, and NON-VERBAL actions, expressed.

I rarely see a person who personally attacks another person OR ANIMAL, who REALLY believes AND CONNECTS TO 'GOD'.

And from a scientific perspective, per how I analyze GOD here, in systemizing 'old', general definition, of science way..

THAT MAKES almost PERFECT, RATIONAL SENSE.

I can sense someone doesn't believe in GOD before they tell me, about 99% percent of the time, per my mental PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY LIKE notes, when I experiment with this REAL LIFE GOD PHENOMENON.

AND I HAVE EXPERIMENTED WITH LITERALLY ALMOST 100 THOUSAND FOLKS.

AND MY EXPERIMENT goes on, both for EXPERIENCING ME, and OBSERVING OTHERS, with or without THIS CONNECTION, PER 'GOD'.

SOME PEOPLE EXPERIENCE 'THE FORCE' STRONGLY AND ARE EVEN missed when their physical presence is not felt.

SOME PEOPLE EXPERIENCE 'THE FORCE' WEAKLY AND EVEN CATS RECOIL FROM THEIR TOUCH.

Truly, GOD IS NOT 'ROCKET SCIENCE'.

GOD IS 'COMMON

SENSE'.

I don't know, you're still trying to yank my point off godknowswhere and make it something it wasn't - whether you have any idea you're doing it or not.

My point: a pink unicorn is a specific idea. A phenomena of belief in deities or deity coming up from tribes all over the world from East to West to the jungles and island peoples does not get caged into The Bible. You can't really dangle something like a 'pink unicorn' and say it represents the broad phenomena.

Punishment for blasphemy? I still don't think you've figured out that Christianity was not a global event existing since left the trees in Africa.


You're still dragging this off somewhere else.

Thousands, even millions, of tribes of people - less than 50 persons each. A shaman in each one, not much communication between most of them. They had beliefs in animal spirits, in sentience of the elements, that if they could make a headdress of bearskin that they took on the power of Bear or if they had some tiger claws they could take on the power of Tiger by contagion. This WAS our inquiry into the world around us and our assumptions based on it. You'd have a bunch of people dancing around the fire while drums are beating - throwing themselves emotionally into a frenzy toward a certain idea until an internal experience was triggered for them. That also had a lot to do with what they believed, that with the right work their own brains edified it.

As man communicated further tribal concepts like these morphed into ideas like fate, universal mechanism, and karma. A few more distillations and you had the roots of the major five religions in the world that anyone could name off.

You're reinventing world history based on what you think of Christianity - and I see a lot of that around here. That's why I don't want to haggle with you about Christianity, it was never my point. 'God' can just as well be an umbrella name for an animistic universe, a pantheistic universe, or a panentheistic universe, so the 'God' concept is not one that absolutely means 'Christianity', or Judaism or Islam, and I don't see any suggestion that I'm stretching definitions. Even most polytheists would have to admit that their Gods and Goddesses were subsets of something larger that they drew their being from. The idea that some people believe they've learned all there is to grasp on the subject because they learned a few things about Christianity really baffles me.

Well this is not my understanding of empiricism, to me empiricism holds that observation is the "primary but not necessarily the only source of knowledge" to quote Wikipedia "Empiricism is a theory which states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience". More to the point it is the cornerstone of the scientific method To paraphrase Richard Feynman "if it disagrees with experiment then it is wrong", which is a sentiment I hold to.

As such, the primary observational evidence for god shows there is none, however in the case of something that is not falsifiable by experiment we need to look at probabilities based on what we do know. Given that we have a solid base knowledge of how this earth and the physics of the universe work, we can say "there is no need for god".Add to this the complete and utter lack of primary evidence for God pushes its existence even further down the probability scale.

All that is left for rational scientific debate is the existence of a non interventionist God IE Deism. Once again we see that judging by what we are learning from our universe, and making rational assumptions of what that might mean for outside the universe, the need for a sentient being to kick things off once again starts looking improbable compared to natural causes.

You saying "ah there might not be a need for God but that does not mean he does not exist" is bordering on the facile. I might as well state that even though there is no need for the universe to have come about by the collision of an anti-matter bowl of petunias and a matter sperm whale, does not mean it did not happen.

But, like you say regarding deism, it really does not matter at this juncture in our knowledge, and no deist has ever stated that certain people should be put to death, or sex and marriage is not allowed between people of the same sex. But Rho, you are not a Deist, far from it. And as such your theistic views can, and have been tested eg we now understand and very importantly can PREDICT climatic events, no longer attributing storms etc to an intercessory god as did your religious forebears, there was even a prayer experiment, which, involving thousands of Christian showed prayer was no better than placebo, and as for Creation . Essentially scientific knowledge has done away with any rational argument for a theistic god, all that is left is the facile argument "ok we know all about the natural laws but you cannot prove god is not using them at his will"

Last edited by DentArthurDent on 11 Mar 2015, 6:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I like that explanation of Empiricism.

Of course you would because it takes empirical out of where it is appropriate and useful and applies it where it is irrelevant. Try, for example, to "empirically" dissect the stuff we call life. The only way to detect its presence is by what it does. The difference between a dead organism and a live one is not merely the presence of various physical atoms.
You can take all the atoms that make up even the simplest typical (they're all different) "living" organism and wait for as long as you like but it won't turn into a live virus. On the other hand you can take a live virus and, if it can't reproduce, it will die and revert to its simplest chemical constituents... and you won't have to wait even years.

Empiricism is one of those isms that tries to make a whole belief system out of one simple practical element taken way out of context. A very common tactic of snake oil salesmen and other charlatans out to deceive the unwary.

No

Concise and unequivocal. Well said.

Of course there is... But it requires the use of reason.

It requires evidence...

By anti-matter I mean that He does not occupy a space.

Anything that is contained within a space is not God.

I don't see how God disagrees with experiment. So why choose to (dis)believe the way you do?


There is no LOGICAL NECESSITY for a first cause. Doesn't mean there wasn't one. As to complete and utter lack of primary evidence…well, that's debatable. If you hold that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," then the existence of the universe is testament to God's existence and is thus the primary evidence you're talking about. In my view, the evidence pushes God's existence further UP the probability scale. Again, you're simply making a choice to (dis)believe something I don't.


What is "rational"? I hate semantic wars, btw, so rather than asking for a definition, all I'm going to do is point out that what constitutes rationality will vary from person to person. Are you making the claim that you or a group of like-minded individuals have a monopoly on reason? I don't believe that you are, nor do I think such a claim would be reasonable for anyone (myself included).


Again, why choose to believe either way or anything in between? If we're being honest, whether you're right, I'm right, or petunia-ists are right, there IS a right answer in there somewhere, and we'll never know for sure. We have to acknowledge the petunia-ists at least have a point. Because we don't know, and yet the answer is so important to us. Why is that answer so important? It's really an emotional question, isn't it?


One man's facility is another man's parsimony. Remember that.

I'm very easily distracted. Is the REAL issue here about who should be put to death or marriage inequality? As much as I'd enjoy getting into that discussion, and as pertinent as I feel it is, I've gotten "official warnings" from mods for that. To me, that's just INSANE, but this isn't my website or forum. So rather than criticize people in charge I disagree with or get into off-limits debates that would end my usefulness here, I just leave the issue alone. I'm sure there are places we can discuss that, but that place simply isn't WP.

In the end, though, all we have left is this, if that's REALLY how you feel: You have a disagreement with God as to how He chooses to run things. And, yourself being created in God's image, it's natural to feel that you can relate to God the same way you relate to other people. A very, VERY highly effective way of dealing with people you dislike is to simply ignore them out of existence. And the single best effective way to get rid of God is to ignore Him until He goes away. Obviously, people don't actually cease to exist just because you ignore them…but they do cease to have any perceivably meaningful function in your life.

I don't mean to stray from the topic, but you did bring up some issues people tend to be very emotional about. I don't want to assume too much, but I do sometimes wonder if most of us aren't closet fideists. Choosing to not believe in God because you dislike certain aspects of Him isn't a rational position. Fideists are open about the role (or lack thereof) of reason in their choices regarding faith in God.

No logical necessity means that it's not rational to believe it. And you can't say the universe is evidence for God, it's a circular argument. For instance, if I said ghosts cause hiccups, then is every hiccup evidence for ghosts? Of course not. You are making a choice to believe something in the absence of evidence. Everyone has a right to believe whatever irrational thing they want, but they can't claim that it's rational. That's why they call it faith.

This caught my eye because the term fideist is unfamiliar to me so I had to look it up. Here's its wiki page just in case I'm not the only person who wasn't familiar (although maybe I am )

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

After reading it I am absolutely sure that I am not a closet fideist.

I never made a decision to reject a God I found cruel, although revulsion at Old Testament wrathful/vengeful God has been expressed by some others in PPR. I have just always noted that religious belief is completely a matter of location,time and upbringing. It's so arbitrary. Why is it seen as an irrational and emotional decision if I don't believe in the Abrahamic God but nobody even notices that I also don't believe in Zeus? To me that just looks like an accident of location and time, modern U.S.* rather than ancient Greece. If I lived in ancient Greece would it be irrational for me to not believe in Zeus? It's just so arbitrary that what I'm supposed to default to belief in and would theoretically have to angrily reject is just an accident of when and where I was born.

I was taught the Pythagorean Theorem in a middle school math class. Presumably Pythagoras himself was expected to believe in Zeus. My math teacher taught me to use the Pythagorean Theorem for certain math problems. It is timeless, not culture-bound. It is an observation about how the world works that is not dependent on when and where a person is born to be applicable (and I've read that other ancient mathematicians discovered it too but Pythagoras gets the name check). Over in the middle school social studies class I was taught about Zeus, who Pythagoras either believed in or decided not to believe in. But nobody ever expected me to believe in Zeus or else make an active decision to reject Zeus. Unlike the Pythagorean Theorem, Zeus was just an interesting artifact of the past. But yet I was expected to default to belief in God or else make an active rejecting decision not to. But why? Just because I was born in modern America rather than ancient Greece?

Did I look over the flaws of Zeus and decide he was just so capricious and cruel that I couldn't justify a belief in him? (All the Greek Gods seemed pretty capricious and cruel.) No. I was never expected to auto-believe because I wasn't born in ancient Greece. If I was, I would have been. But I was born in modern America and so am expected to auto-believe in a modern conception of God that has just come down to us because of the way various historical events played out. I'm not rejecting. I just never auto-believed in the first place.

If Pythagoras had never been born the Pythagorean Theorem would be just as true. It would just have a different name, maybe one of those other ancient mathematicians. It isn't an accident of history. It's an observation of natural laws governing the universe.

It isn't emotional, irrational and faith based for me to not believe in God. Thus I'm not a closet fideist. It's just that this piece of the culture I grew up in didn't attach itself to me. In a thousand years (or maybe a couple few thousand?) I am theorizing that culture will have changed so much that what we are currently expected to believe in (God) or have to emotionally reject will just be seen as a quaint artifact; as irrelevent in the year 4000 as belief in Zeus is now.


*no American exceptionalism here. This expectation of auto-belief in the Abrahamic God is common in many,many countries. I just happen to have been born in the U.S.

A circular argument means you assume what you're trying to prove. Evidence such as the existence of the universe and the observation that everything that begins to exist in our universe has a cause would be evidence for God.

HOWEVER, the first cause argument depends on agreement that everything in the universe IS caused. If we can agree that everything begins to exist has a cause, and there IS evidence to that end, THEN, yes, it IS a logical necessity that God is the first cause. It is NOT logically necessary that God Himself be caused, because only things that begin to exist have causes. God could be eternal, existing without any kind of beginning. Therefore God would be an uncaused Cause. It's not logically necessary to assume an eternal being would be caused. That would, in fact, be a contradiction and, therefore false. But circular argument? Not at all, and the evidence points to the existence of God.

Now, you COULD say that I have to assume God exists in the first place. That's fair. But if you're going by strict physical evidence and the most rigorous empiricist methods, you have to make the assumption that your methods are the right ones. As I've already explained, your methods don't get a free pass, either. But since you can't prove that, either, then you're resorting to circular reasoning (i.e. assuming your methods get accurate results without externally verifying them). You are forced to accept that your methods "just work." OK, fine. I can accept my faith "just works." Why are you more right than I am? You can attempt to answer that question any number of ways, but I don't see any answer that could be completely satisfying. It's an unsolvable problem.


Right. However, I don't think conclusions in favor of God's existence are entirely irrational. There's more to logic than evidence. What makes it difficult for the believer in going through all the proofs for God's existence is that they all start from the unbeliever's presupposition that there is no God and THEN try to show that presupposition is wrong and that God can be proven. The proofs work just fine. They're just never very convincing, and you can go back and forth eternally with one person trying to prove himself right and the other person wrong.

You won't convince me that there is no God, the irony being that I can draw the opposite conclusions with the same logic that is supposed to show the opposite. That's not WHY I believe in God…there's a lot of history there that's pointless to go into here. The point is that the counterarguments are just as circular as mine are and unconvincing. So…again, if (and we agree here) logical arguments either way aren't convincing, if evidence isn't convincing, why lean one way or another? There's no right/wrong answer, I mean, everyone has their own story. Classic logical proofs/disproofs/whatever just get stale after a while.

Maybe not, but you're still taking a lot on faith. It's just faith that leads elsewhere. That's half the point the fideists make.

A lot of Christians would be averse to the fideist label, too. I don't fully adopt it, either. The reason I don't wholeheartedly "come out" as a fideist is because I think one can have a justified, true belief in God that one could arrive at empirically (I believe there is a God-sense that is better developed in some than others) and through reason.

You would think. How is it God has survived all this time? History hasn't always been kind to Christians and Jews.

And then there's ISIS. Either believe or we'll believe FOR you. Brute force. I'm not saying Christians have always been pure as driven snow when it comes to politics and foreign policy. It's just you'd think by now people would have figured it out and would stop trying to blow ourselves up back to the Stone Age.

Even if we were to decide God is non-existent or irrelevant, "faith" (emphasis on scare quotes) remains a formidable force in our world. I wish I were optimistic enough to say I could see that changing, at least for the better, but things aren't looking good at the moment.