Nonsense. I have offered no special definition of communication, and I've only used explicit actions/events as examples of communication.

I have said nothing about "silence" as communication. That you could take my silence on the topic as a specific stance is ridiculous.

Am I supposed to be impressed at your failed mind-reading?

What goalposts have I changed? Back up the accusation.

I'd be happy to change this discussion to the topics of your choice, right after you acknowledge that "refuses to communicate" objectively does not apply to the Christian god. Or the Muslim one. Or any other religion which has prophets and a holy book.

Personally rejecting or disliking the religions involved is no excuse for getting basic descriptions of fact wrong.

You're changing the goalposts. "Refuses to communicate" and "refuses to communicate to me right now with a particular method" are different things.

Previous communication is still communication, and if you're willing to acknowledge the Garden of Eden, the Flood warning, and the 10 Commandments as communication, then my point stands.

As for "refuses to communicate right now", what have you done to seek communication with your creator? You'll be hard pressed to find any follower of Christ who believes he "refuses to communicate".

So do you want to argue that the religious group that follows Jesus has a problem where they need to explain why the creator refuses to communicate with his creation?

So even though they believe that Jesus was God incarnate, the creator interacting personally with creation; that this represents an absent creator they need an explanation for?

The documented history and the teachings objectively exist, and objectively state certain dogmas. That aspect is not subjective at all. You may not believe that it is true, but that does not justify misinterpreting what a given religious group actually believes, or what challenges go with it.

And MS has a government granted monopoly on Windows due to copyright.

So what?

I'm not arguing cellular is/is not a cartel.

I am arguing that natural monopolies do not naturally become monopolies. However, people do like to propose monopolies as the "best/most efficient" solution for "natural monopoly" situations.

Given how much people apparently hate cable companies and their municipal monopolies, perhaps we should revisit the assumption that "natural monopolies" are best served with an actual monopoly.

If God exists, then there are objective differences between those two scenarios, because said God controls reality.

And so when we look at the Jewish/Christian religious history, those who claim to speak for God also are agents of miraculous events, where God affirms their authority to speak for him.

Which again, demonstrates that the religion is formed around a belief that the creator is communicating with his creation. They have no problem to explain why the creator refuses to communicate, because they don't believe that!

It means everything.

The claim was that religious people have to explain why the creator they believe in refuses to communicate.

For this particular religion, they have plenty of examples within their religious history where the creator they believe in communicates with his creation. They believe in a creator that communicates, not a creator that refuses to communicate.

As such, the challenge they face is not to explain why their creator refuses to communicate; it's to demonstrate how their examples of divine communication are actually true. Which are the points you go on to raise.

That you are unable to distinguish between these positions does no credit to your understanding.

And Windows monopolizes the users of Windows PCs. Squint hard enough, and every business is a monopoly. That doesn't make them monopolies.

Your point ... ? Users can choose what's right for their needs. Just like all you can eat buffets aren't good value for someone who just wants a quick snack, but decent for someone who wants lots of food.

So what does any of this have to do with "natural monopolies" being monopolies?

So you think Clear Channel has monopolized the radio spectrum?

My microwave!

Monopoly doesn't mean Quadropoly. Rather nice how all those cellular monopolies offer all these choices like unlimited texting, huh?

Ever hear of pirate radio? Do you understand that broadcast power falls off with the square of the distance?

How do you envision a monopoly arising from the scarcity of the radio spectrum, when all sorts of other scarce resources do not create monopolies?

Too big a country, and Inverse Square Law for radio broadcast. How much do you think it costs to put down the most powerful transmitterS across the entire country? How much do you think it costs to continually run it at a rate that will drown out any potential competition? Don't you think the Law of Diminishing Returns kicks in at some point?

I submit it is easier to create a cable monopoly than a radio monopoly due to its higher barriers to entry. Building a transmitter is far easier than digging up a bunch of land to lay down cable. And we see that cable monopolies rely on government enforcement to actually have a monopoly.

Yet, no one can ever point to a single "natural monopoly" actually becoming a monopoly "naturally".

"natural monopoly" is really just an argument that we should create a government monopoly because it's more efficient than the alternative. Perhaps. But monopolies are not a natural phenomenon. The nature of Nature is competition and ecological niches.

Do you agree with the overall point, that Jesus claimed to be communicating things from God?

If you ignore how often contemporary Jewish religious authorities tried to stone him for blasphemy, or how his disciples understood it that way.

The scarcity of a natural resource does not cause a monopoly to naturally occur. The scarcity of radio spectrum would not result in a single radio broadcast corporation monopolizing the spectrum.

Now, if it wasn't regulated, there would be some chaos - but the steady state equilibrium result may not be all that bad.

But you don't need to see 27 different cable providers to see any benefit from competition. Just more than one supplier aiming to meet the demand.

As for duplication; that assumes that each cable company wants to string their own set of wires. Their desire for profit and the high costs of this method would naturally push them to find other methods - either make the homeowners pay for and own it; or to rent/share with other companies.

The fact that many are unhappy with cable companies and desire more competition shows that granting them government monopolies has downsides. Do you think the US would be better off if Google Fiber efforts were banned because "natural monopoly" and "duplication" and it might not be cost effective?

Physics doesn't enforce monopolies.

Take cable - natural monopoly? Except it relies on government enforcement to create the actual monopoly. And even then, there are alternatives - DirectTV, fiber-based Internet video streaming, disc-based, public broadcast ... There's more than one way to skin a cat for every technical problem.

Natural monopolies aren't all that monopolistic. It may be more efficient if they were regulated in certain ways; but then you have to accept that the downsides are linked to regulation, not just the "natural" monopoly.

What does this have to do with the point that Christians can objectively point to their religious history and say that their god has been communicating with his creation?

If Jesus exists and was who he claimed to be - would his existence and teaching represent a creator communicating to his creation?

Can you objectively describe that as a creator refusing to communicate?

Not relevant to the point, which is that the religious can point to objective people, events, and artifacts as a creator communicating to his creation.

But to answer the question, you can also study what Jesus is said to have taught, and evaluate if they sound like the ravings of a madman.