And if we can't know something, then we can know nothing, which begs the question of why you're arguing for anything and any sort of communication would be a 100% hoax.
We can know things only provisionally. It is not All or Nothing. We know what we experience, but we do not know if that is an illusion, a delusion, a hallucination, a real complete experience, or only a partial experience. All we can do is proceed as if we know something for certain, when we don't. What we seem to know for certain is what works no, at this time, in this place of our experience.
And no, communication is not a hoax, or if it is, it is not yours or mine. Maybe you or I are simply a small program in much larger computer simulation, or a brain in a vat wherein some external entity feeds us sensory inputs to see what we will do with it. Or maybe we're participants in a full-immersion simulated reality game of some sort.
It's one of only two alternatives, since either the universe was initiated by a supernatural being (God or any of the absurd alternatives like to throw out there like pink unicorns, which, if it created the universe, would qualify it for God), or it sprang into being spontaneously.
Well, that's true if you lump everything into two categories, especially when those categories are just made-up words for We Don't Know (and May Not Be
Able To Know)...Supernatural? A word for "We don't know." Are you certain that if it was created it could only be caused by a singular being? What if it took the combined efforts of thousands of beings? We don't know, and maybe can't know...Spontaneous? While conceptually different to us, how would you tell whether or not the cosmos came about because it was created or because it was spontaneous? We don't know. How about an eternal universe?
How do you KNOW that the universe hasn't always been here? That's a third option you aren't even entertaining. Certainly doesn't appear to be the case, but who says we're capable of understanding everything about existence? Maybe in a thousand years, or a million...or never...we'll discover that it's always been here, going through fluctuations for reasons we can't comprehend, caused by things--entities or natural laws, and how could we tell the difference?
We may think that by analogy we can recognize only two or maybe three options...and that seems to hinge on reality (the universe) being material as we experience and understand it...and maybe we just don't understand it at all, even though we do experience and communicate about it.
And the reason it comes down to that is that a creator God could have achieved anything else (than creatures with free will) instantly, rather than taking 14 billion years behind which It can remain out of sight and out of mind.
Certainly. but for such a creator entity, the ~14 billion years so far may not be, by comparison, a few moments. There is no reason that 14 billions years is of any consequence for a creator entity.
And, there is no reason that some omnimax 'supernatural' creator could not create a universe with creatures with free will in all sorts of alternative forms, including ones that we cannot conceive of. In fact, the creation of multiple, different universes might be the purpose, to see what happens when the conditions are different.
He/She/It/Them could also have created the universe for other purposes than to have humans (and I would suppose, other sentient beings who could worry about free will...something that has not been demonstrated to be a human trait in any conclusive manner) pass a test.
One of my favorites is the idea that humans (and maybe other sentient beings) taste good. There's no test, there's just harvest, cooking and consumption. Or maybe stars and planets or galaxies or the frothy bubbles and intersections of the intergalactic space are like a snack...
But we (life and sentience) could be just an unintended by-product of a "creation" that was intended to create black-hole singularities...or even naked singularities, which will take until black holes evaporate many bazillion years in the future (according to us)...but who knows, maybe the equivalent of overnight, or thirty minutes at 450 degrees for He/She/It/Them.
Testing our free will is demonstrated (as shown above) by the fact that it's the only reasonable motivation for God remaining hidden,
Assuming that God created the universe to test us, perhaps...but the other alternatives I've suggested above, and many more that could be had with a little creative thought over beer and pizza, might suggest that there is no reason for God to reveal Him/Her/It/Them-selves, because we are not the point of the creation. He/She/It/Them could just be waiting for the harvest, or for the timer to go off take the universe out of the oven to eat it.
I've presented possibilities, based on the evidence of the existence of the universe, and there being no evidence as to its initiation.
I've also presented possibilities.
Is there really evidence that the universe exists? That it is not just a dream? A role-playing game? A computer simulation? An illusion, delusion, or hallucination?
I certainly see no reason to conclude that if there is some sort of "creator or creators," that the purpose is for us to have free will as a test to get into an afterlife.
And one last time: if the universe is the result of some spontaneous event that has resulted in us, how does that appear--to us--any different than a created universe in which either 1) the creator doesn't show because it's not even aware that we exist, as it is interested in other facets of the creation, or 2) knows and doesn't care that we exist, or 3) knows but wants us to be uninfluenced in our use of free will, as a test to get into the afterlife?