The Fairy Delusion

Garden Waterfall Pond by Andrew Rollinger
Licensed under Creative Commons

There is a quote by children's author Rose Fyleman which goes, "There are fairies at the bottom of our garden."  It's actually the title of a poem she wrote in Fairies and Chimneys.  Richard Dawkins referred to this quote in his book The God Delusion when he wrote, "There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?"  Obviously, I feel that I should not be agnostic with respect to fairies.  I much prefer to believe there are fairies at the bottom of the garden and everywhere else in the universe.

The God Delusion is Dawkins' well-presented argument for atheism and agnosticism.  I agree with him that such views are healthy and should not be stigmatized.  However, I feel like Dawkins is missing something about theism, or in my instance the belief in fairies.  Yes, we certainly can be agnostic with respect to fairies.  The garden is beautiful whether you believe fairies to be at the bottom of it or not.  The gardener(s) who worked on the garden deserve credit for the effort and talent they put into it.  The recognition of fairies in the garden does not dismiss that; it simply acknowledges that the garden is capable of reminding us that there is more to this world's beauty than can be explained.  There is a special mystery.  I'm grateful to the gardener(s) and the fairies for the experience of the garden.