I believe that my position on torture is entirely consistent with humanism, which is the foundation of my morality.

Maybe humanism doesn't mean the same thing as it used to and perhaps the morality you think it entails has changed.

After all, humans can change their mind.  That's a good thing, right?

Just as Christians can disagree over what God wants, humanists can disagree over what behavior is best (i.e. moral) for the survival and prosperity of the human race.

On your basis, your own view is just your opinion.  On your view, there is only the basis of your opinion behind a statement like:  "We have to set a precedent that individuals are responsible for the choices they make, even if those choices are tough."

Why do we have to?  Because you say so?  It is a 'train wreck' only by your estimation.

Your appeal can only be meaningful if there is some sort of standard that you expect others to judge by.

That is the difference in our views and approach.  You believe there is no such standard but you nonetheless appeal to it.  Either you are appealing to absolutely nothing except your own feelings or you are tacitly admitting the existence of that which you are sure doesn't exist...

I, on the other hand, believe there is a standard and that in its essentials is known to all men.  That is why my views are meaningful and yours are not.  I might be wrong- don't misunderstand me- but they would still be meaningful.

I might say 2+2=5 and be wrong, but the pronouncement that it is wrong is only meaningful because there is a correct answer to the sum.  Your view essentially is that there are no correct moral answers.  Hence, it is impossible to declare any of them incorrect, and consequently impossible to advance- meaningfully- any of them as correct.

That is the difference in our approaches.

What law, exactly, would that be?  If the torture was government authorized, do we have conflicting law to think about?  I haven't delved into this question to see what law applies here, but you're taking the position that they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, so tell me what you see that law being.

Law aside, if I step back and take a look at morality, from my objective standpoint, let's say that the foot-soldiers violated morality by engaging in torture ordered by their superiors...

How evident a violation is this?  In the Holocaust, people were being slaughtered and those people were innocent.  Here, people were not being slaughtered but tortured (bad, but still not nearly as bad) and they were extraordinarily guilty -- at least, that's probably how the foot-soldiers reasonably saw it.  If terrorists planted an atomic bomb in NY City with a 12 hour timer, and the only way to pinpoint its location was to torture a captured terrorist, would that be ok?  If it is, how obvious is it that what happened here was not ok?  Especially from the perspective of a subordinate who has at least some reason to trust his leaders?

As for the deterrence rationale, put explicit some rules in place to govern this type of situation and chances are you'll deter this type of practice from happening in the future.  Will some other situation come along that is different, but to which the same type of rules should apply?  Perhaps, but if that future situation is fraught with moral ambiguity, then chances are you won't get deterrence from imposing punishment here.

What you may just accomplish is to imprison or unduly harm some good people who made the wrong judgment call about a situation admitting of some moral ambiguity.  Does the government really want to concentrate its energies in that direction, especially when there a plenty of other things that need attention?  What you are asking for, if pursued, could become a horrible distraction with no real benefits at a time when government energies need to be concentrated on serious problems, and I think that perhaps Obama sees that.

Sure God let's us make choices, but that doesn't mean they are to be unbounded.  Some choices involve difficult moral calculation.  That's different than believing there isn't a basis for moral calculations at all.

"If we do not, then society will be weaker."

So?

"It is in our best interests to stop doing things to hurt ourselves."

So?

If the subject is torture, it seems like you'd be arguing, or at least welcome the argument, that the torturing of a few is definitely in the self-interest of the many, especially when it is nearly certain the subject of the torture wants to kill lots of people and probably has information on plans to do it.

Your argument here seems to be laying a pretty solid groundwork for undermining the moral authority you invoke in your opening post.

"There is an element of self-interest in my moral prescriptivism."

Mine, too, actually.  The difference is that I believe that moral law is not based on human opinion, which can shift and change, but upon the design by the one who made humans in the first place.   I believe that this morality has our interest in mind, not just because of the notion of fear and punishment (as you frequently assert) but because I believe that there is a surer path to happiness and contentment, individually and socially, for those who adhere to the Maker's design.

And society is composed of humans who constantly shift their opinions, especially when it is composed of humans who feel competent to engineer their own standards.  Saying 'society determines the standard' merely moves the question back a step.

"I seem to recall that you have argued that Christians are in general agreement about the more important aspects of morality. "

All humans, actually.  Because I believe we have a common maker.

It is of course begging the question to dismiss it as an 'imagined deity.'  It makes obvious good sense to conform to the standards set by one who is in proper authority over you.  In my book, the one who made us is in the best possible place to tell us what is good, best, and proper, and the converse.

I'm not sure how you can square your argument here about us believing in a 'superbeing that controls everything' with your earlier statement that we God gives free will.  Do Christians believe God controls everything or that he gives us free will?  Settle this for me, Cop. 

"You base your morality on opinion just as much as I do."

To the best of my ability, I base it on God's opinion.  That seems proper if he is the Author of all.

"We do not fundamentally disagree on mathematics.  We do disagree on the existence of gods."

This is a red herring.  Whether or not we agree on the existence of gods is irrelevant.  The mathematics was just an illustration.  The raw fact is that you claim there is no moral standard.  Any statement of judgment about anything involves some kind of standard.  The question is what they reduce to.

Dannyboy's favorite example is ice cream.  He thinks that saying one thing is morally right is about the same as preferring chocolate ice cream over strawberry.  And on his terms, I'd say he is right.  I, however, have trouble putting questions like 'torture' and a horde of other issues as like preferring one flavor over another.  I especially have a problem with people making an argument on the assumption that we should all, for some bizarre reason, have the same preference, if there isn't in fact a standard that transcends us all.

Its another example of cake and eating it too.  You want the moral high ground but don't want to face the implications.  You make moral pronouncements while rejecting the existence of the kind of basis that would make those pronouncements meaningful.

"Again, there is a difference, but we tend to arrive at the same place MOST of the time.  Christians tend to be humanists, too."

Christians are the founders of humanism.  The father of humanism was Erasmus.  Have you ever read his works?  He was devoutly Christian.   So, I think the equation should actually be quite the other way around- atheists tend to be humanists, too.  However, modern humanists have detached from the mindset the principles that Erasmus had in mind when he 'founded' it.  Modern humanism is just a bastardized form of an originally Christian worldview.

Cop, your humanism is just Christianity warmed over.  Separated from the original source, humanism has changed over and over again as it was forced to come to grips with reality.  Three Humanist Manifestos in under a hundred years and they still don't got it.  One Bible has stood well for more than 2,000 years.  And it will stand for another 2,000 years, after 'society' and the humanists have penned another thousand manifestos.