To the best of my knowledge you'll not find that term of para-atheism in other places .
I would call a para-atheist a person who declares him self in public as an atheist but deep down in his soul he believes only "almost"in the non existence of God.
Beware we are surrounded by para-atheists more then we think especially in the western world and perhaps even between members of this forum.
The para -atheist bears in his mind a tinny drawer with the inscription on it of Fate or Destiny or even God.
So long his life is OK he will leave the drawer close and dormant.
But in time of personal distress he will open that residual drawer,he might seek confort or cure in religion saying :well if it does not help it does not harm either ,which is a form of Pascal's Wager
If he will be struck by a tragedy he will say straight away :It's Destiny
That's why I affirm and have not find any reason to think otherwise that
Destiny is the Achilles tendon of atheism.
Destiny means denial of the Free Will and existence of Free Will is strongly linked to indeterminancy.
RD denies indeterminancy ,against a lot of scientists who support it .
Read what Wikipedia says about indeterminancy in Quantum Mechanics ,in the Free will problem ,in Darwinism(the genetic drift)
and you will see that we stand before a deep core problem of atheism whith only a stuttered answer

Surely you yourself are a para-atheist then. You just stated "deep down in his soul he believes".

Atheists don't believe in souls...unless it was a "slip of the tongue"

Atheists don't believe in God(s).

Souls are another matter. I can believe that we have a soul but still remain atheist as I don't believe in a god.

(September 10, 2008 at 5:13 pm)Leafmold Wrote: Atheists don't believe in God(s).

Souls are another matter. I can believe that we have a soul but still remain atheist as I don't believe in a god.

I think it's called, Spiritual-atheist.

At the moment, I'm a hungry atheist. So I'm off for a late dinner whilst watching a documentary about face transplants

Wouldn't that make them Strong agnostics who don't know the definitions?

Well I don't count atheists who believe in souls as atheists. Everyone understands a soul to be a part of a person which survives death and goes to God. If you don't believe in God then there is no purpose for this soul.

Quote:Everyone understands a soul to be a part of a person which survives death and goes to God.

Everyone except the Oxford English Dictionary.

An atheist is simply someone who does not believe in god(s) and nothing else. It may be that many atheists also share other beliefs or non-beliefs but this not mean that they do so because they are atheist.

You're an atheist and you don't believe in a soul ≠ you don't believe in a soul so therefore you are an atheist ≠ you do believe in a soul so therefore you are not an atheist.

What we are dealing with here is a personal definition of the words atheist and soul rather than their literal meaning.

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(September 10, 2008 at 6:54 pm)Brick-top Wrote: Wouldn't that make them Strong agnostics who don't know the definitions?

No. agnostics are Without Knowledge. This has nothing to do with belief.

(September 11, 2008 at 5:21 am)Leafmold Wrote: No. agnostics are Without Knowledge. This has nothing to do with belief.

lol wut?

an intellectual doctrine or attitude affirming the uncertainty of all claims to ultimate knowledge.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/agnosticism

That's right