Is there any real harm to God as an imaginary proxy for goodness? Say you explicitly disbelieve, but consciously embrace the alief that there is a sentient embodiment of goodness responsible for creating you and saving your life from accidents. This has the advantage that you can "thank" the imaginary entity and thus trigger similar social circuitry in your brain to thanking an individual who has done you a personal favor.

It's not literally true or really being claimed to be true, but is it actually harmful to indulge in these kinds of fantasies? Or is denying this impulse the atheistic equivalent of right-wing parents who are afraid to let their kids read Harry Potter (because it is about witchcraft)?