Intrigued

And how do you know that?

This one, winner of the 1961 Hugo, is difficult to beat: Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz. Nuclear war, as per your preference, and millenia spanning timescale.

In the UK, where gun laws are strict and (famously) few of the police are armed, I have several friends who have shotguns. Some favour their use on game birds, others on clay pigeons. But a shotgun is not a highpowered rifle, or a small handgun easily concealed. I understand - and sympathise - with the notion that this is "just a way of life that we're just trying to protect". Unfortunately, it has become just a way of death that you are trying to protect. What would it take for you to say "enough is enough"?

I apologise for the lack of clarity in my posts. I shall try to make my position clearer. 1. I cannot make an educated guess on the matter, since I lack sufficient relevant education. 2. If you agree that no one knows, then there is nothing meaningful to discuss. 3. For me this seems not unlike the alleged debates in the Middle Ages as to how many angels could fit on a pinhead. 4. I do know enough to know that when I don't know enough then my best guess is worthless. 5. But since you press me, 2,000,434,823. (As per point 3 above) Note: In my attempts to be honest in these posts I fear they may come across as aggressive. Such is not my intent.

William of Ockham would be cheered, but the simplest answer is not always correct. For matters as esoteric as this one seems to me, I prefer the even simpler answer: I have no idea. Not only no idea, but no vestige of an idea, nor even a shadow. I am not opposed to the question being asked, I merely doubt the value of giving a confident answer with our present state of knowledge. (But it should be noted that I also doubt the value of string theory for anything other than exercising the imaginations of mathematicians, so my views shouldn't be taken too seriously.)

While I agree completely with your first sentence, I also acknowledge it is essentially an Argument from Incredulity and as such carries no weight. Just because "nothing" is beyond our capacity to imagine does not preculude its existence.

That is a confident assertion, but can you justify it without resorting to metaphysics or some other branch of philosophy? However, don't waste time trying to answer that question: the subtext of my post was "Let's not waste time considering nothing, let's just think about something." There you go! Sometimes all it takes is putting the word nothing in a sentence and I am immediately lost.

Intelligent Design is a brilliant marketing concept developed as a back door method of getting creationism into school science curricula in the USA. This was clearly and publicly demonstrated in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case over a decade ago. Michael Behe's book is part of that attempt to bamboozle the public. A far better read for "the scientist looking at science for answers" in this field would be something like Kenneth Brown's "Only a Theory" which systematically dismantles the nonsense of Intelligent Design. Darwin formulated his ideas over a century and a half ago - there are bound to be errors and ovesights in his work. Breaking news, in the century and a half since he published his works tens of thousands of scientists have conducted research that has developed his remarkable insight into arguably the most solidly established theory in science. That said, I would be interested to know which particular ideas of his you consider to be "bad science". Perhaps I could then either agree with you that those ideas are outmoded, or show how you have misinterpreted their intent from the few excerpts you have read. (Warning: creationists routinely quote Darwin out of context in order to suggest he claimed something that supports their argument. When such excerpts are read in context their assertions are contradicted.) Note to moderators - I'm not sure if we are even meant to give breathing space to pseudoscientific nonsense by taking the time to denounce it. Please remove this post if it is counter to forum policies.

When I attempt to contemplate "nothing" I get trapped in an endless spiral of confusion and chaos. I infer from this that I am not intelligent enough to understand "nothing". I don't know if any human is intelligent enough for that, but if they are I am reasonably sure I not even intelligent enough to understand any simplified explanation they would be inclinded to give. Consequently I have found it a sensible policy to focus on what appears to be real. That seems to be sufficient to be going on with.