My take on Atheism (rather different from chemoelectric or Dawkins')

A few years ago my neice (musickat's daughter, the Mercurial Maiden) went through a phase where she spent a lot of time with her imaginary friend. She had lots of conversations with the friend—some of them 'merely' playing, but some of them with the friend giving my neice very good advice.

Of course, everything the imaginary friend said must have already been known by my neice, yet she needed to put the advice into somebody else's voice in order to hear it. And these conversations served her quite well.

A couple of times, she wanted me to join in the talks. I did, once or twice, but only because she was my neice and it was my choice. I certainly don't think I should be forced to enage in conversations with imaginary friends to, say, participate in public life in the United States. But so long as people don't insist that we have to have imaginary friends, maybe it's best to wait until people are ready to give up their imaginary friends on their own.