What is a moral person? from Bozeman

This whole business of "culture wars" (a term that brings up only 315,000 links on Google) centers on fear - fear of change, fear that the rules aren't the same as those we learned as children. People brought up to believe that they are superior to others for some characteristic - race, nationality, gender, religion, sexual preference - feel insecure when they realize that acceptance of their innate superiority is not universally agreed upon in the wider world.While we're talking definitions, I'd like to try out my personal definition of a moral person. I believe that a moral person is one who cares about other people as well as herself, who feels responsibility as a human to help those in need, who aspires to leave the world a better place for having been in it, who wants future generations to share the beauty of life on this planet, and who counts the devotion and appreciation of friends as of higher value than bank balances.I also believe that it is perfectly possible to be a good and moral person without going to church, or without believing in God. It's simply not true that without religion, people have no guidelines for their behavior. We can be guided by our common sense (the world simply won't work if everyone is only out for Number One) and by our sense of common humanity. To the non-religious it is very clear that some religious people spend much of their energy convincing themselves that they are right and that other religious people are wrong.In the end I would have to say that moral values means valuing behavior policies that are good for my fellow humans. I don't suppose that would light up Karl Rove's billboard, but it works for me.Marjorie Smith is a Bozeman writer and editor and former member of the U.S. Foreign Service. She can be reached at yokoi@mcn.ne