Underlying Philosophy

Provided you are prepared to explain that you don't assume all the baggage that goes with the idea of "reality", that you are essentially talking about patterns in sense-data without judging what lies behind them that seems to be workable. But you have to be prepared to explain it, because almost nobody will work it out if you don't.

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But almost nobody will consider the question in the first place, which means that I shall hardly ever have to proffer such an explanation.

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Then it won't be very difficult for you to clarify when it is needed. It would have certainly made this conversation shorter if you had bothered to do that.

I have to say that I see this view of Divine Command Theory as a form of nihilism. Form this perspective, there is nothing wrong with, say, stealing in itself, it has just - somehow been "made" wrong by the command of an amoral dictator. And that, really doesn't sound like anything I would call morality.

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Even if we turn the "amoral dictator" into a benficially-motivated guide there are still grave issues.

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Even if the motive happens to be benign, the rules are still established by fiat, and the entity establishing them must be amoral, since the argument presumes that there is no morality prior to the rules being established. To call the entity in question an amoral dictator seems to be a simple matter of fact.

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We can even give the benefit of the doubt to some sort of "God" being.
Let's say that God, in his infinite power and wisdom, does possess the knowledge of "the best" moral system possible.
God A: "Mortals, here are my explicit commandments, follow them because I know what's best."
God B: "Mortals, here is the reasoning behind my commandments, if you can identify any flaws or any improvements come and we will discuss any and all possible errors."

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The Bible doesn't even do a great job of A). The Ten Commandments are part of a deal exclusively with the Israelites and there are even two versions of them !I;d also state that even if the commandments were as good as they could be, B) would always be better - because by understanding the reasoning we would be better placed to deal with both issues that are not explicitly addressed and cases of conflict between moral rules. It seems foolish to assume that a set of simple rules can cover all moral questions for all time, whether through details not addressed, questions of interpretation and application or through changes in society which require changes in the application of the rules.

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...if there are some (even one), then these assumptions must have another standard of proof.

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Of course, if they are assumptions they aren't proved at all, so there is no relevant "standard of proof". Again we see the self-contradiction which the failed presuppositionalist "philosophy" falls into again and again.

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You said "pragmatically, all we need is that nature is in fact uniform". But how can you know that nature is uniform without first assuming that it is uniform?

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I can't KNOW it in an absolute sense, and neither can you. However if I assume that nature is uniform and you assume that God exists and that God would maintain the uniformity of nature as an absolute fact (despite the Biblical evidence) I have an advantage. It is not possible for me to be wrong and you to be right, but it IS possible for me to be right and for you to be wrong. So my position is more parsimonious than yours and more likely to be true.

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I will also make a statement of fact "the great and might Pink Elephant is under the earth, holding it up"...pragmatically speaking, as long as it works for me, then does it really matter?

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Again we come back to reasons for belief. Pragmatism is not a very good reason - in fact it's a last resort. And you have no reason to resort to pragmatism on the question of your pink elephant because we have very good reasons to reject it as false.

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I don't think this actually constitutes a response. And if you do have some assumptions, then the question is this: are those "assumptions" completely arbitrary?

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Pointing out that your question assumes a contradiction is certainly a valid response. Anything that is proven is a conclusion not an assumption.And no, as I have been saying all along, we do not rely on arbitrary assumptions. We do use criteria, notably parsimony and pragmatic usefulness to choose which to make and which not to make.

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So nature is not absolutely uniform?

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I said no such thing.

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I fail to understand this.

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It is really very simple. The assumption of the uniformity of nature can only be false if nature is not uniform, but in that case your position is also false. However, if nature is uniform for some other reason than the one you assume, your position is incorrect, but my assumption is still true.

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So we can resort to pragmatism with the uniformity of nature, but not with the pink elephant...do I detect some arbitrariness?

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There is no arbitrariness in my position. As I said we use the most reliable methods applicable to each question. Since we cannot prove that the laws of nature will not change in the future it is, to that extent an assumption. But it is a very useful one (as the successes of human technology have demonstrated) and is thus pragmatically justified. Your "pink elephant" can be empirically investigated, which is much more reliable than pragmatic grounds and therefore we use THAT method. (Of course, it also fails on pragmatic grounds, being absolutely useless.)