I watch a video about that non overlapping magisteria thing... where religion is supposed to be used to determine morals and answer 'why' questions but I don't think it's effective even at that stuff... namely because all of its methods give inconsistent results (if you pray, asking if homosexuality is immoral for example, people don't get a consistent answer. But that got me thinking about what its methods are, like if you wanted to use religion to decide if homosexuality what are your options? I mostly came up with 4.

1. Religious experiences. IE, prayer, meditation, doing drugs, talking to the voices in your head.
2. Try to find the right interpretation of a holy text.
3. Deferral to authority like a priest, cult leader or traditions.
4. Just make st up that sounds nice. Like, do you feel homosexuality is wrong? Would it be convenient for you if God was okay with it? Then go with that!

Anyway, I'm curious if there's some fifth option I'm missing. Can you think of a fifth way someone could try to 'use' religion to answer some kind of question?

I know the most common option is probably just taking the 'truths' you were told as a kid for granted, but I feel like that would fit under deferral to authority in a roundabout kind of way.

nope, sounds about right

6662216
When someone talks about religion and science being "non-overlapping magisteria", they're expressing a partially valid point in a very bad way: That of the demarcation between truth, what is, and morality, what somebody thinks ought to be. This dichotomy between is and ought has been known by philosophers for centuries; it has its roots in the works of David Hume, and has been (badly) argued against ever since by people who don't like its implications (that is, that morality is not an objective truth).

In relation to the non-overlapping magisteria claim, science is about discovering what is, what the world around us is actually like, how things behave, and so on. Religion, in the mind of the sort of religious person who makes this claim (generally the liberal-leaning, "Jesus is love" sort; you won't often see a fundamentalist claiming that science can get by without religious interference), is about deciding how to act in the world, our place in it, and what we should do because of that; religion is, in their mind, about "oughts". Whether it's actually good at answering the questions it purports to is beside the point; the point is that it's discussing entirely different questions from the ones science is discussing.

The issue is, of course, that religion neither sticks to oughts, nor encompasses all discussion of oughts. The wider area of moral philosophy includes some religious concepts, but also various methods that bypass religion entirely. Meanwhile, no matter how hard they try to re-frame the question, if they're claiming the existence of a thing, whether it be God or Heaven, or the factuality of a claim, such as Jesus rising from the dead or the Bible being divinely inspired, they are no longer talking about oughts in the context of their religion, but ises, and so are stepping over their own dichotomy. That said, many atheists and naturalist thinkers could do with paying more attention to this, too: I've seen plenty of people, including big-time names like Hitchens, step over the is-ought dichotomy in the other direction, claiming that you can scientifically or experimentally determine morality. This is, in reality, just as nonsensical as trying to moralize an object into existence.

To answer your original question, the method most people are thinking of when they make the non-overlapping magisteria claim is the method of rational philosophizing, starting from one or more presuppositions based in their religion, such as "God is good".

The moral function:
1. Input relevant ises that define the situation in question.
2. Input desired ought outcome(s).
3. Logical analysis of future potential courses of action and the possible results thereof.
4. Output: The course(s) of action analyzed in step 3 that are most likely to produce the ought(s) earlier specified.

Notes:
The reliability of this function is dependent on the accuracy of the ises to the real-world scenario; better knowledge of reality produces better outcomes.
Despite being the basic description of how morality works, this function makes no judgement of right or wrong; the individual makes that judgement when they decide what ought(s) to plug in. The function merely provides a guide on how to achieve those oughts.
Common mistakes include putting oughts in the ises slot, taking the output to be an is when it is more properly a more complex ought, or skipping step 3.

For help on how to choose the right oughts for your input, please refer to your empathy. (Disclaimer: This recommendation is based on my own oughts, not an is.)

6662216 I think religion is more of a rationalization. Human brain makes decisions before it figures out the reason why it made them. Societal norms are usually in the rout of decision making, but humans want to be unique and special, so accepting they made the decision because they were brought up that way is not good enough. They need an 'objective', 'firm' support for their decision. Religion can act as that justification.

TL;DR; religion doesn't help you make moral decisions, but it can reaffirm the decisions you've already made.

6662254
I agree with Sam Harris. Morality can be subjected to scientific scrutiny, and when allowed reasonable axioms there are objectively right and wrong answers to moral questions. The primary axiom being that morality is about increasing wellbeing, much the way medicine is axiomatically about improving health, thus there are objective medical rights and wrongs.

I do not think Hitchens oversteps his bounds when attempting to navigate oughts via scientific methodology. I think that advancement in moral science is highly beneficial a task to undertake, and dismissing the privilege religion attempts to assert it has over the field in order to find better morals is something we naturally have been doing for some time, and need to get on doing more overtly and shamelessly.

6663847

and when allowed reasonable axioms there are objectively right and wrong answers to moral questions. The primary axiom being that morality is about increasing wellbeing, much the way medicine is axiomatically about improving health, thus there are objective medical rights and wrongs.

That's where the argument runs into trouble. You have no basis to claim that morality is actually about increasing wellbeing. There is no purely logical argument that supports this; the very assumption that increasing wellbeing is good is subjective. Even from an empirical standpoint where you ask morality functions in society, there are people who believe morality is about spreading your particular culture, or pleasing the Creator God, or a whole host of other things.

Hitchens' argument essentially amounts to "I don't make any subjective assumptions if you ignore the subjective assumptions I initially make." No matter how you try to twist it, saying "morality is about x" is not an objective statement, it is a subjective statement of what you want morality to be about.

I do not think Hitchens oversteps his bounds when attempting to navigate oughts via scientific methodology.

I don't recall saying that was a problem, any more than there's a problem with using the scientific method to build a vessel that can carry you to the Moon; the problem is with insisting that your quest to reach the Moon is objectively right, when you insist that the subjective basis of your moral system is objectively the way things are supposed to be.

6664526
All science is based on axioms.

6664526 The moment you define the word morality is the moment science can get a hold of it, and subjectivity has nothing to do with it. As long as the definition will hold, the science built upon that definition will hold as well.

And if you intend to keep the word morality undefined, it's just a meaningless word.

6664811

The moment you define the word morality is the moment science can get a hold of it, and subjectivity has nothing to do with it.

You're still missing the point. You can't define morality objectively. It is the step of defining morality itself that fails to be objective, and people like Hitchens fail to acknowledge this.

6664755
There's a conflation going on, here. Spot the difference:
"We're using these axioms to base our reasoning off of because they appear to get us closest to the truth."
"We're using these axioms to base our reasoning off of because they give us results we like."

Science is about finding facts about reality. It's subjective to say that it is good to find truth, but it is objective to say that science helps to find that truth, or at least is intended to.

It is not ever objectively true to say that morality helps to find what is right, because unlike "true", "right" is in itself a subjective term.

6665049

"We're using these axioms to base our reasoning off of because they give us results we like."

You're the one adding this in here, and insisting it is happening.

You also tagged me in your other post, but quoted Bad Dragon.

6665046 How we arrive at definitions is irrelevant. The definition one comes up with doesn't have to fit your view of it. You can have a different definition of it. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you differentiate between the two definitions. You can call the definitions morality1, morality2, and so on if you have to.

If Hitchens says, "If morality1 is this, then by scientific thinking you can conclude that."
That's perfectly reasonable and there's nothing wrong with that. No subjectivity involved.

Also, the first step of discussing something is defining what it is you're discussing. It's hard to discuss Zgynzgagl if you have no clue what it is. Agree on it's meaning, then discuss it.

6665069
I'm not "adding it in", that's what's happening. Go ahead; give an objective definition of morality that isn't chosen by subjective preference.

6665102

If Hitchens says, "If morality1 is this, then by scientific thinking you can conclude that."
That's perfectly reasonable and there's nothing wrong with that. No subjectivity involved.

Except that's not what Hitchens says. What Hitchens says is "Morality is objectively this; there is no morality1 or morality2". I hate repeating myself, but at this point it's like you're intentionally trying to miss the point.

6665137
You are indeed adding it in.

6665266
Just repeating a baseless claim doesn't make it true. Why do people do this?

6665270
You're repeating baseless claims, so I'm simply not inspired to rebut.

You are adding in nonsense, and I'm not interested in acknowledging your efforts to do so. Whenever you feel like setting aside all this aggressive "This is how things are, grrr!" bullshit, then perhaps we can actually talk about what is being said for a change.

6666493
I explained my claims. You're going to have to do better than "no, you are", here. You replied to me. You appear to have misunderstood something in what I originally said; that doesn't make me subsequently explaining what it was that you missed "adding stuff in".

Also, I love when people accuse someone of being "aggressive" or "mad" as if that's an argument, and not just an ad hominem. Especially when the person accusing others of being aggressive is the first one to use aggressive language.

If you want to talk about what's actually being said, try not attacking my person and instead address... what I've actually said.

6666538
There you go again. You're adding/twisting things.

If some random on the internet claims the other person is "mad" it's a statement about they "why" of their response, and questioning the person rather than the content. That is indeed something to object to people doing.

Stating that someone is "aggressive" has nothing to do with their motive, but the manner of their posting. You attempt to conflate the two. And then entirely argue on "mad" when what was used was "aggressive."

Since you appear to be really messing up all over the place on definitions, let's go ahead and point out what words actually mean for a change, and explain it to you. "Aggressive" is how you have presented your posts. You insist on your definitions, then claim others are wrong for not fitting your definitions. No one is talking about "mad" but you build your "point" as if they were. I guess that's strawmanning?

So let's point out some examples.

You have no basis to claim that morality is actually about increasing wellbeing.

And then you go on to aggressively assert that there are no justifications at all, and give examples of people who lack justification and then call that "logic."

If you'd read Sam Harris's work, you'd see he addresses that and justifies his axiom. I said reasonable axioms, not simply axioms.

You can't define morality objectively.

Aggressive. Note, not necessarily wrong, but it is aggressive. You are stating a negative that can't actually be proven, but can be refuted with one example on the positive. Rather than ask for that refutation, you continue on as if there really is no refutation.

"We're using these axioms to base our reasoning off of because they give us results we like."

Yet another thing you aggressively assert, but no one has done. At all. Not one person in this thread has said, "I want a certain result, so I'm going to do it this way."

Sam Harris, who again is the person I agree with, covers this. Not once did you ever ask for clarification on this, instead you're simply assuming me/the rest of us are idiots who don't know what we're talking about, and you aggressively accuse us of lying about intent. You attempt to provoke us into defense against your accusation, instead of simply explaining what we mean.

I'm not "adding it in", that's what's happening. Go ahead; give an objective definition of morality that isn't chosen by subjective preference.

This is the first time you even come close to actually attempting to engage in the conversation, but by this point I'm simply not interested in entertaining your combative tone. Go read Sam Harris's book. It's called, "The Moral Landscape."

Overall though, you seem to be operating on a particular set of definitions for words, and struggling to accept the fact that others mean something other than what you're arguing against. In particular, your exchange with Bad Dragon exemplifies the problem here:

there is no morality1 or morality2

Except yes, there really is. That's really the basis of Sam Harris's book. What morality is is not properly defined by popular/current usage. When a theist claims objective morality comes from their God, they make certain mistakes. Primary being the lack of evidence their god exists to be a moral authority. However, if that deity does indeed exist as described, then divine command theory holds up. Our attempts to understand morality pale. Which would suck.

Entirely subjective morality is another theory. One you're (aggressively) attempting to assert.

Morality being based on wellbeing isn't a subjective effort to game the system and claim a desired outcome. It is an observation that all efforts to define morality boil down to wellbeing. Even those who claim to follow divine command theory, when questioned and honestly examining why and how they hold the morals they do, it comes to wellbeing. Even if they don't realize it.

As I stated above, again paraphrasing Sam Harris, it's akin to how the science of medicine is about health. Sure, what counts as health or healthy can be, philosophically, deemed subjective. But in the real world, real science is done in the medical field that produces real results. Medcial science does make objective claims about health, and those are proven or disproven scientifically.

Similarly, morality is about wellbeing. We can make use of the objective nature of this to produce results. We can make observations, run experiments, and make predictions. We can use real, objective science with morality.

It's called an axiom for a reason. All science is based on axioms. When we reasonably accept those axioms (as opposed to unreasonable ones like the unfounded assertion of the existence of some magical sky daddy), we can operate objectively.

I'll toss the ball in your court. Attempt to explain any moral or morally contextual anything that has nothing to do with wellbeing. Rather than simply declare that this is subjective in some useless philosophical pedantry, actually support your disagreement that this is an unreasonable or impossible axiom.

If you're able to satisfactorily dismiss the axiom, fine. The conversation ends, unless I can satisfactorily convince you/whomever that it is a reasonable axiom. But aggressively saying, "no!" is just unpleasant and pointless.

Once we agree on the axiom, everything else you've said so far is entirely outside of the conversation. We can get to things like results, avoiding "desired results bias" and so on from taking place.

6667242

There you go again. You're adding/twisting things.

This is going to be fun.

If some random on the internet claims the other person is "mad" it's a statement about they "why" of their response, and questioning the person rather than the content. That is indeed something to object to people doing.
Stating that someone is "aggressive" has nothing to do with their motive, but the manner of their posting. You attempt to conflate the two. And then entirely argue on "mad" when what was used was "aggressive."

Oh look, a word game! That's what I call arguments that attempt to distract by nitpicking someone's phrasing rather than addressing the actual ideas behind the words. This appears to be the most egregious form of word game: The "You didn't use the exact wording I did, therefore you're wrong!" argument. This kind of argument indicates a fundamental misapprehension of how language and communication work; treating words as hard-coded definitions rather than contextualizing them within the conversation at hand. But I'm bored, so I'll play along for a little bit.
There are several layers of issues, here. I'll start at the outermost and work down.

1. You accuse me of conflating the terms "aggressive" and "mad". I'm not sure how you get to that without intentionally ignoring common sense. What I said was ""aggressive" or "mad"". Notice the "or" in the middle? That conjunction is usually an indicator that the speaker is differentiating between the two items they are referring to. It is true that I speak of them both as examples of ad hominem, but that isn't a matter of conflation in the least.

2. You then accuse me of proceeding from the conflation that doesn't exist to basing my argument on the definition of "mad". My original sentence, for reference:

Also, I love when people accuse someone of being "aggressive" or "mad" as if that's an argument, and not just an ad hominem. Especially when the person accusing others of being aggressive is the first one to use aggressive language.

I marked the two words in question with different colors for convenience. Or, more accurately, to highlight your stupidity; because it turns out that I actually used your word, "aggressive", as the main thrust of the argument.

3. You admit that attacking someone's motive for making an argument is an ad hominem. You then contrast this with attacking someone's manner of presenting the argument, as though that isn't an ad hominem... when it still is. And you accuse me of twisting terms? This isn't the only time you hilariously misunderstand a key word in this comment, either. In case you really, honest-to-goodness don't understand: An ad hominem fallacy is any argument directed at the person rather than the argument. Anything about the person. That includes what their motivations might be, the way they speak, what they look like, the words they use to express their position; anything at all that isn't the argument itself.

4. You're acting like "mad" and "aggressive" are completely unrelated concepts, when the reality is that they normally imply each other: When someone demonstrates aggression, the usual conclusion from observers is that said person is mad; and when someone is mad, they normally express it through aggression.

5. You literally fake-quote me as saying "grrr". I'd love to hear how that isn't intended to indicate me being "mad".

Since you appear to be really messing up all over the place on definitions,

There's going to be a lot of irony in your comment, isn't there?

let's go ahead and point out what words actually mean for a change, and explain it to you.

Oh, I can't wait. Teach me your idiotic ways.

"Aggressive" is how you have presented your posts. You insist on your definitions, then claim others are wrong for not fitting your definitions.

So, besides this continuing to be an ad hominem, it's also interesting to note that you have proceeded to act as though I've somehow denied being aggressive. I didn't make any statement for or against whether I've been aggressive, because as I said, it's irrelevant to the arguments being made. I only pointed out your aggression because it's a matter of hypocrisy, not because it matters in and of itself.
But if you're going to attempt to claim I'm being aggressive, you could actually try using an example that works. Oh no, I make a claim that other people are wrong when they say something wrong! That's... aggressive, somehow?

No one is talking about "mad" but you build your "point" as if they were. I guess that's strawmanning?

Yup, irony in spades. What is a straw man is claiming that I built a point upon something that I did not because it's easier for you to argue against that then it is to dispute what I actually said.

So let's point out some examples.

You're really pounding this ad hominem home, you know that? This is like jumping up someone's ass for making a typo... oh wait, I think you did that earlier in the conversation. I thought at the time that it might just have been a friendly heads-up, but it's pretty clear by now that you were trying to invalidate my statements by pointing it out.

You have no basis to claim that morality is actually about increasing wellbeing.

And then you go on to aggressively assert that there are no justifications at all, and give examples of people who lack justification and then call that "logic."

Let's reiterate what we're looking for, here: Examples of me being "aggressive" in my previous comments. What is actually presented here is a short quote where I make a purely logical statement, which you appear to admit from your phrasing does not include anything aggressive; no, what's aggressive is apparently the stuff I say afterward... which is not quoted, and which you fail to support as actually being aggressive beyond your assertion. Which is ironic again, because here you are in the same sentence implying that merely asserting something is bad argumentation.

Side-note (Or is it the main point, since this has more to do with the original dispute than the entire spiel above?): This is another beautiful example of a straw man. I at no point claim or imply that there are no justifications for the claim that morality is about increasing wellbeing; only that there is no justification based in the principles of logic. There are plenty of non-logical justifications thrown around, and I never disputed that they exist. But since that's too hard for you to deal with, you again reinvent my argument for your convenience.

If you'd read Sam Harris's work, you'd see he addresses that and justifies his axiom.

This isn't even an argument. I haven't read Harris's book, and I don't feel like doing so. This, frankly, reads like the sort of thing a religious person would point to as justification for claiming atheism is a religion; you literally just made the claim that I'd agree with you if only I'd read this great book that you're basing your beliefs on. Well, I haven't; so it's your job to present the arguments, not just claim I'm wrong unless I've read through your entire sacred text. It also feels like a name-drop, as if I'm supposed to be impressed that you agree with Sam Harris. I'm just disappointed; the key indicator of someone who has actually thought through their position is when they can present it and defend it in their own words, rather than letting some other source argue for them.
And although this is a continuation of the straw man from before, I'll address it again: I have made no claim that Harris and the like don't present justifications for the axiom in question... my position is only that said justifications are not objectively based.

I said reasonable axioms, not simply axioms.

And I ignored that part of it as a generous gift to you, because there are two meanings of "reasonable" you could be using, and neither of them are helpful for your point:
Reasonable, as in the colloquial term meaning "fair", "practical", or "good enough". This is an inherently subjective term; something is only reasonable in this sense when people agree for it to be. Not only is it subjective, but that same aspect means that the moment I dispute it by saying "I don't find it reasonable", it goes poof, because I've broken the subjective consensus.
Reasonable, as in the more formal "adheres to the principles of reason". This just leads to a contradiction, due to the nature of an axiom: There is no such thing as a reasonable axiom, because reasoning is what happens after axioms have been chosen. By definition, an axiom is something that is chosen as a starting point to base reasoning off of, and cannot be constructed by reasoning itself... not without a prior axiom to build off of, at which point the original axiom stops being an axiom because it's now based on an argument from a more fundamental axiom. If this confuses you, then you don't understand the subject nearly well enough to argue about it; stop before you embarrass yourself further.

You can't define morality objectively.

Aggressive. Note, not necessarily wrong, but it is aggressive. You are stating a negative that can't actually be proven, but can be refuted with one example on the positive. Rather than ask for that refutation, you continue on as if there really is no refutation.

At least you admit this time that calling something aggressive doesn't invalidate it. But I'm still at a loss how you're seeing aggressiveness in a purely logical statement; I can only conclude that you're seeing things, possibly because you don't like me for some reason or another (I know I've probably argued with you before, but my gloriously bad memory means I'm unbiased by any idea as to what those arguments may have been about).
But more on the actual original topic (kind of); the saying that you can't prove a negative is a myth. I'm telling you because you seem to be unaware. It's quite easy to prove a negative, but it's more fun to point out that a "negative" statement can be reconstructed as a "positive" statement and vice versa, which leads to the absurdity that you can't prove a positive, either. Statements in the negative format are typically proven by way of logical contradiction if you take the negative claim to be false.
I didn't ask for a refutation because as a matter of discourse, if you disagree and can provide a refutation, you will. Instead, you appear to just be claiming that there is one, somewhere. That's not an argument at all; that's a claim that you might be able to form an argument if you weren't lazy.

Yet another thing you aggressively assert, but no one has done. At all. Not one person in this thread has said, "I want a certain result, so I'm going to do it this way."

It's become clear at this point that you don't understand the term "aggressive" whatsoever. You're literally just asserting that anything I say is aggressive, with no argument or support at all.
Again you illustrate an inability to comprehend important aspects of communication like "inference". Because you didn't literally say something, it must not be so. Well, I didn't literally say I was being aggressive, so that must mean you're just making that up, by your own reasoning. Concepts can be implied and inferred without being spelled out explicitly.
But this isn't even a matter of implication or inference: This is a matter of the nature of the topic itself. In morality, someone wants a certain result (a moral system that has particular desired attributes), and so they pick a set of axioms that they think will produce that result. You want a certain result, and that motives you to make particular initial choices.

Sam Harris, who again is the person I agree with, covers this. Not once did you ever ask for clarification on this, instead you're simply assuming me/the rest of us are idiots who don't know what we're talking about,

Asking for clarification isn't how this works. If you want to defend your position, it's your job to defend it, not my job to request that you fix your own inadequate arguments. And again with the "someone else somewhere made an argument". I don't care. Either you present that argument here, or it isn't relevant. I'm not going to go on a quest to find your arguments for you.
I don't recall beginning this discussion thinking that you were an idiot who didn't know what you were talking about. I actually came to that conclusion while reading this last comment; around the time when you revealed that you don't understand what axioms are. Before then, I held out hope that you actually had a valid point somewhere, and if I poked you enough you would present it, rather than just repeating that I'm wrong.

and you aggressively accuse us of lying about intent.

I don't recall doing this, either. See a few paragraphs up for the reasoning behind the statement that you appear to be sorely misunderstanding. It's also kind of hard to accuse you of lying when you haven't presented what you think your intent is in the first place; there's nothing for me to contradict.

You attempt to provoke us into defense against your accusation, instead of simply explaining what we mean.

See, no understanding of how this sort of discussion works. It isn't my job to ask for what you mean; it's your job to explain what you mean adequately in the first place. Me pointing out that you've failed to defend your position is a perfectly valid criticism, unlike basically anything you've criticized from me. It's focused on argument: Either you present one, or you can be assumed not to have one. I'm sorry I'm not holding your hand as if this is your first argument and my job is to teach you how to present your case.

This is the first time you even come close to actually attempting to engage in the conversation, but by this point I'm simply not interested in entertaining your combative tone.

1. Meanwhile, in reality, that's the only comment of mine that I would consider not particularly engaged in the conversation, as a result of having nothing to work with because you'd refused to present any substantial arguments yourself.
2. I love the "finally, you say something useful... I'm not going to bother to reply to it, though" attitude. It's always funny. Especially when expressed in the middle of a long comment that replies to a whole bunch of irrelevant crap. It really illustrates your priorities.

Go read Sam Harris's book. It's called, "The Moral Landscape."

No. I will not read your Bible just because you want me to, and my position isn't any weaker because I've refused to. If you think there are arguments against my position, then present them.

Overall though, you seem to be operating on a particular set of definitions for words, and struggling to accept the fact that others mean something other than what you're arguing against.

And yet another failure to understand how conversations work. Both you and Bad Dragon objected to something that I initially said. If there's a discrepancy between what I'm talking about and what you're talking about, then it's your problem, not mine, because you are replying to me. It's like I'm talking about sandwiches, and you think I'm making some euphemism about sex, yet when I respond to you assuming you're talking about sandwiches like I was, you accuse me of being in error for not realizing the conversation had inexplicably changed to sex.

Except yes, there really is.

Hopefully, you actually try to defend your position this time.

That's really the basis of Sam Harris's book.

Because if the Bible says it, it must be true! It's starting to get worrying, this obsession with that book. An idea is good or bad, right or wrong, regardless of whether a particular book has said it. I can't believe I'm explaining this to an atheist. Try making arguments for yourself, based in your own understanding of the topic, rather than referring to authority all the time.

What morality is is not properly defined by popular/current usage.

That depends on how you look at it. In a sense, it is, just as all concepts are; all of language is a matter of popular consensus. The "current usage" part is a bit worrying; I hope you're not about to go into a fallacy of etymological origin.

When a theist claims objective morality comes from their God, they make certain mistakes.

They do. I wonder at this point if you actually understand what those mistakes are, or if you're just mindlessly agreeing with whatever Harris said.

Primary being the lack of evidence their god exists to be a moral authority. However, if that deity does indeed exist as described, then divine command theory holds up. Our attempts to understand morality pale. Which would suck.

A swing and a miss. The primary problem with "divine command theory" is the same problem that you refuse to acknowledge with your own argument; that is, that what you choose to base your morality on is necessarily subjective, whether it's a deity or not.
A fun little side-quest: If God as the arbiter of an objective morality holds up when he does exist for the same reason that you think your own morality holds up as an objective truth, divinely commanded morality also holds up when he doesn't exist; because whether or not there's a physical God, the concept of one still exists, and it's the concept that morality is based on.

Entirely subjective morality is another theory. One you're (aggressively) attempting to assert.

Because reasoned argumentation and aggressive assertion are the same thing. Great job with the thinking there; you've almost managed to do some. Also, I wouldn't say the theory of morality that I'm defending is "entirely" subjective. Especially because that lends itself to certain prior mischaracterizations of my position that I've already had to address.

Morality being based on wellbeing isn't a subjective effort to game the system and claim a desired outcome.

Partial straw man, again. I neither said nor implied anything about "gaming the system". That implies cheating or something else undesirable; but what I'm saying is this is just how morality works.

It is an observation that all efforts to define morality boil down to wellbeing.

Remember when you said morality wasn't defined by popular use? Now you're claiming it is. The least you could do is be consistent: Either how various people have tried to define morality effects morality's definition, or morality's "true" definition is separate from the different attempts to define it.
But you mentioned counterexamples, earlier. I could, myself, define morality as that which maximizes the output of noodles. Whatever increases the output of noodles is good, whatever decreases said output is bad. We'll call it an offshoot of Pastafarianism. This is the part where you struggle to dismiss my morality as invalid, but can't muster up any argument as to why it doesn't count that doesn't amount to "it doesn't have to do with wellbeing", which would be circular reasoning.
Or, I could point to the various religions, and how their moral systems tend to be geared towards the spread of the ideology and coherence of the group, with the supposed wellbeing of people being secondary, if that.

Even those who claim to follow divine command theory, when questioned and honestly examining why and how they hold the morals they do, it comes to wellbeing. Even if they don't realize it.

Yeah, you completely went back on your previous claim of morality not being defined by popular use. But your self-contradictions are beside the point: The real show here is that you're asserting something that, honestly, I'd love to see any attempt to actually substantiate. How do you test these moral systems to find the truth, hidden even from the people who hold that morality? It can't be through logical examination of how they spread, because that would lead to the conclusion above that many of them are based in perpetuating themselves rather than anything about individuals, let alone their wellbeing. It can't be through asking people what the purpose of their morality is, because a bunch of them are going to say "for the glory of God" or something like that. It can't be through individual examination of whether people choose the morality that best supports their personal wellbeing irrespective of whether they consciously acknowledge that motive, because it's easy to find people who's own moral system is causing them serious problems (See: Religion. Especially extremist cults.). So what is the method here, exactly? I suspect the method is "we search for some connection to wellbeing, however flimsy, and then declare that's what the morality is for because it agrees with our initial assumption; if we can't find a connection to wellbeing, then we circularly dismiss it as not being a true moral system".

As I stated above, again paraphrasing Sam Harris, it's akin to how the science of medicine is about health. Sure, what counts as health or healthy can be, philosophically, deemed subjective. But in the real world, real science is done in the medical field that produces real results. Medcial science does make objective claims about health, and those are proven or disproven scientifically.

Medicine isn't axiomatically about "improving health". Medical knowledge could be equally used to kill someone (for instance, by knowing which toxins, when injected into the bloodstream, most quickly shut down the nervous system). The axioms of medicine can be summarized as "when you do stuff to the body, it reacts in predictable ways". This is, as far as we can tell, objectively true. There is no "right" or "wrong" in medicine; only true or false. Whether you stitch up someone's cut or stab them in the carotid artery is a question of morality, not medicine. Medicine only tells you what you could expect to happen if you where to take one of those actions.

Sure, what counts as health or healthy can be, philosophically, deemed subjective.

Just to hammer it home, that's not the issue, here. Medicine isn't about health; it's about how the body works. "Healthy" is what it's called when the body is functioning the way the body normally functions, which can be objectively determined. The question of whether healthy is "good" is a moral one, not a medical one.

But in the real world, real science is done in the medical field that produces real results. Medcial science does make objective claims about health, and those are proven or disproven scientifically.

Yes, it does. What it does not do, is make claims about whether you should or shouldn't strive for health. It is dispassionate.

Similarly, morality is about wellbeing.

No. If we're really going to run with the comparison to medicine, then morality is about how the world reacts when you poke it. Whether certain reactions are good or bad is not within its purview. Of course, that defeats the point of morality, which is supposed to be about telling you what's good and what's bad, so the comparison to medicine fails.

We can make use of the objective nature of this to produce results. We can make observations, run experiments, and make predictions. We can use real, objective science with morality.

I never disagreed with the idea that you can use science on a moral system. In fact, I explicitly agreed with it multiple times in previous comments. The problem is picking the moral system in the first place; that is subjective, by necessity. Similarly, you can use principles of engineering to design and build any number of machines through objective processes... but those principles of engineering aren't going to tell you what machines to build, you have to decide that for yourself, subjectively.

It's called an axiom for a reason. All science is based on axioms.

I hope you're not implying that morality is scientific because it uses axioms and science also uses axioms. Because that would ignore the part where axioms are originally a philosophical concept that science was built off of, and which exists separate from science in the realm of philosophy.
All of everything is based on axioms, by the way. It's not limited to science; it's literally the basis of all coherent thought.

When we reasonably accept those axioms (as opposed to unreasonable ones like the unfounded assertion of the existence of some magical sky daddy), we can operate objectively.

There's no such thing as "operating objectively". Operation, that is, conscious action, is not something that can be decided upon objectively. An entity that operates on pure logic, such as a computer, will just sit there doing nothing, because pure objectivity doesn't present motive for making any decisions. It needs a subjective input, such as a desire to look up porn, before an action will occur. You can make an objective analysis: "If we assume axiom X, then that leads us to action Y", but no amount of objective analyzing will get you to "we should choose axiom X".
On reasonable axioms (again): If we're going to pretend that "reasonable axiom" means anything at all, a creator god is not an unreasonable axiom, in and of itself. God as an axiom is only unreasonable if it comes into conflict with other axioms that have been chosen, such as the axioms that logic should be held paramount, or that empirical examination works. And even then, it's only the conflict between the axioms that is unreasonable, not any axiom in particular; you could just as easily remove logic and empiricism to solve the dilemma.

I'll toss the ball in your court. Attempt to explain any moral or morally contextual anything that has nothing to do with wellbeing.

There are a number of problems with that. First off, that there's a difference between being relatable to wellbeing in some way and being based on wellbeing; you're preemptively moving the goalpost. Secondly, you failed to define what you mean by "wellbeing", which means you can essentially define it around whatever example I might choose to present. Thirdly, I strongly suspect that you would reject anything that clearly has nothing to do with wellbeing as not related to morality, which, again, would be circular logic and therefore invalid. But sure, I'll give it a go to see if you're honest: I present, again, the moral system based on the axiom that more pasta is good and less pasta is bad. Have fun trying to explain why it isn't a real moral system without falling into a circular argument.

Rather than simply declare that this is subjective in some useless philosophical pedantry, actually support your disagreement that this is an unreasonable or impossible axiom.

Again with the straw man. I never claimed it was either unreasonable or impossible, only that it is a subjective choice. It's like I'm mentioning that those trees over there have red leaves, and you're accusing me of hating the trees, when I said nothing of the sort. [Note: This sentence was edited to better reflect the thought it was intended to express.]

But aggressively saying, "no!" is just unpleasant and pointless.

Yet it's literally what you did for three comments before I finally got you to actually defend your position.

Once we agree on the axiom, everything else you've said so far is entirely outside of the conversation.

Here's the real kicker: I never even said I disagree with the axiom in question. Although I would base my axiom on "freedom", rather than the ill-defined wellbeing, you could potentially relate the two in a way that makes them more or less compatible. But that I choose such an axiom does not make said axiom objective. It's still a subjective choice, and if you or anybody else disagrees with it, there's no logical argument that can be made, even in principle, to convince them to change their mind. I understand this makes you uncomfortable; that you want to be able to say you chose your moral axiom for a firmer reason than "you felt like it". But that's just how things work. The attempt to justify morality objectively is part of what led to making up a God in the first place; do you really want to go down the same track of rejecting reality for not being as nice as you'd like it to be?

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Because if the Bible says it, it must be true! It's starting to get worrying, this obsession with that book.

So... you have no interest in reading the source to form a common ground.

Got it. Have fun with your whatever. Whenever you feel like being pleasant or having the conversation on offer instead of doubling down on your straw, feel free to do so.

You're clearly very keen on making sure everyone reads this thinks you're simply being logical, but I'm not interested in any more of your twisting words around. I'll let you comb through your own lengthy post, and see if you can spot the places where you added extra words or twisted things around, and if you find them all and feel like apologizing for them perhaps we can have a conversation. I'll give you a hint for one of them for free "improving."

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Congrats, you're a pompous idiot who has zero self-awareness and no ability to reflect on whether you may have made a mistake. Remember your long rant about how I'm a bad person for supposedly just saying other people are wrong without explaining why?

You're a bad person.

Edit: By the way:

So... you have no interest in reading the source to form a common ground.

Literally what a Christian would say in this situation, word for word; implying that the only possible source of common ground is to read your sacred text. Can't argue morality without reading the Bible first, after all. Or the Koran. Or the Moral Landscape. Depends on your moral preference. Seriously, what is it with you and that book? Do you sleep with it on your bedside table, or something?

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I'm not admin, but I'm fairly sure that any reasonable admin would ask both of you to quit it since it has devolved from a discussion to a shouting match. Take a step back, calm down and act as adults.

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Yeah, I think torai is right. This seems more like a personal argument at this point and would be better of you took it to PMs.