An atheist’s Christmas card to religious people and to everyone: Give your kids a father for Christmas.

Show me a high school senior who is an Eagle Scout or a member of the National Honor Society and I’ll lay odds that kid comes from a strongly religious family. Not a necessary consequence, but a very strong correlation.

The cause is not the religion but the kind of father-led family I uphold. Whatever their faults, enduring religions help people to practice my kind of self-adoration de facto, regardless of what the official doctrine claims.

What do I like least about my fellow atheists? The pots-’n’-kettles identity politics that leads them to denounce some of the best exponents of fully-human moral values – religious people. If you’re doing the right things and raising great kids, I like you regardless of how you got there.

This is me from yesterday’s Church of Splendor Christmas Extravaganza:

You don’t need religion to raise happy, productive, self-responsible children, but you do need a firm and fixed moral philosophy – championed by a happy, productive, self-responsible father. My book Father’s Day will show you how to get the best of everything for your family.

If you know a dad who could stand to catch a clue, this book could be a great gift for him, for his wife – and especially for his children.