I'm reading THE GOD DELUSION by Richard Dawkins. How does his repeated talk of "I have hope that...." ........?

Clearly, atheists would not appreciate our categorizing their de facto atheism as a kind of faith. As Richard Dawkins ures his readers, "Atheists do not have faith... reason alone could not propel one to total conviction that anything definitely does not exist." But if not reason alone, then reason and what? Is he not saying 'I believe God does not exist even though by reason alone I cannot demonstrate it'? Obviously Dawkins intends to dodge this by erting that reason by its very nature cannot "propel one to total conviction that anything definitely does not exist." As he notes, on such grounds, the existence of fairies at the bottom of the garden cannot be definitely disproved. Does that seem rational? What propels Dawkins to allow for this absurdity? Precisely his desire to demonstrate to the reader that God does not exist, a bit of a paradox, to say the least. Because Dawkins wants to affirm that the miraculous does not require a supernatural cause, he is willing to affirm that anything is possible so as to allow that chance can provide a materialistic explanation of any apparent miracle.