Are things right or wrong because God says so, or because they just are right or wrong on their own?

Answer 1

I am curious how something becomes right or wrong on it's own? Without someone to define right and wrong, how can there be a right and a wrong.
Humanity would like to take it upon themselves to define good and evil, that was the sin in the garden. Eve ate the fruit so that she could be like God, therefore she could define good and evil.
We would like to say that good and evil are whatever we want them to be, and it is an easy thing to say because it takes away our responsibility to do right by someone else's standard... and it is much simpler to make our own measuring stick of good and evil rather than follow someone else's.
But God is good. he is perfect and he defines truth because he IS truth. and if he is truth, then he also is the one to define the lie. So is there right and wrong because God says so? the only reason there is ANYTHING is because God says so.

Answer 2

Whatever God says is wrong, whatever he says is right, is right. But, you have hit on something... where did we as mankind come up with what is right and wrong? Why are we the only beings on earth with the reasoning to decide 'right and wrong'?

Evolution can explain a few things, but not how we came up with the perception of good and evil and right and wrong. That sort of thing just doesn't happen by chance.

Answer 3

I believe that things are right and/or wrong not just because God said so, but because there are laws in the earth (natural) and laws in the spirit. Believe it or not, they do go hand in hand. God set the 'laws' up in order for us to have a roadmap on how to live and love each other. Those law start in the spirit and then matriculate into the natural. However, when you think about it, since He is God - if he says so - I believe it and that's settles it. It would be just like having Dad in the home. When Dad says 'no' - he means no. (smile)

Answer 4

For too many people what God (if there is one) says is more important than what's right or wrong and that's a big issue to this day. The big problem with that view is that they avert responsibility for their actions because they can pin blame on God or Jesus. PEACE!

Answer 5

Right and wrong are value judgments and therefore subjective. We feel what is right and wrong because of what is generally referred to as conscience, which is an aspect of human nature, in turn part of our evolutionary origins.

You only have to contemplate what would happen if we *didn't* have self-imposed restraints on behaviour to see that morality is a big evolutionary advantage for us - We certainly couldn't have developed the hugely successful, social, technological society that we live in, and filled the world with billions of people, if we didn't have that part of our human nature. So, morality is strongly favoured by natural selection in social species.

Answer 6

I don't believe God "makes" things wrong. I believe God will sometimes ALLOW things to go wrong, (doesn't intervene to keep things from going wrong) for reasons we won't always understand.

I believe the right/wrong thing goes along with God giving us free will. Even so, despite our best efforts, sometimes things just go wrong.

Answer 7

Leah's answer proves there is nothing so intellectually low as morality deriving from the whims of an absolute being.

There are many systems of objective ethics not deriving from a god. In any case, right and wrong are assigned to actions, not inherently possessed by them, unless you are a rule-utilitarian.

Answer 8

right or wrong?it does not matter when thing done does not have any effect on other/thing.If it does and the effect is good,then you might think it is right.otherwise ,it wrong.

so you see its only relative but right and wrong had been establish long time as old as human himself,varying with culture.

Now you see why we need God to tell you what is right and wrong according to him,not ours.
Do I sound like a preacher?

Answer 9

Things are right or wrong based on your personal opinions and values. I don't think that God made "rights" and "wrongs". He gave us the ability to choose what was right and wrong for ourselves.

Answer 10

if you had any brains the answer would be simple but you go about posting it uselessly for other people to see. the answer is because they are right and wrong on their own. I think you don't know a thing about religion.