I find this to be a misunderstanding about what exactly atheism is… An atheist is simply someone who doesn’t believe in the existence of gods/goddesses. A magician who follows the psychological model of magick, and believes that all gods/goddesses are all aspects of his own consciousness could be called an atheist by definition, as they do not believe in the objective existence of the gods.
Secular simply means that they don’t approach life in a religious or spiritual way. They are not bound by the rules of a church or some sort of “higher” authority.
There is no objective proof for life after death. It is all opinion and supposition so there is absolutely nothing wrong with only believing in things one can conceptualize. There are some down right silly ideas about the nature of existence in the occult, and only someone devoid of reason fails to question them. True science seeks to know, objectively.
Then you are showing a bit of ignorance of science and the mindset of scientists. A lot of scientists look at the natural world in the same way as occultists look at the spirits. They want to know what it is all about. Have you ever read Carl Sagan? He found his magick in the physical universe, not outside of it as a lot of people do. He didn’t need gods, or demons and angels to be awed by nebulae or thunderstorms or a blade of grass. He was close to the definition of a mystic, though he would never call himself such. His magick was the world and the universe at large.
One does not need to believe in life after death or a soul to find magic. That is a conceit that a lot of spiritualists and religious people fall into. There is this idea that there is no magick without some god or spirits or whatever, and that just shows a common lie that occultists and worshipers like to tell themselves in order to feel special. By any definition of the term, magick is making change in accordance with will, and is more a mindset than anything else, and that is exactly what true science tries to do through understanding and knowledge about the workings of the objective universe.
There is magick all around us, in everything. Just because someone doesn’t believe in the existence of the soul (which no magician, spiritualist, or religious person has ever found anything beyond subjective proof of) or gods of some sort, in no way supposes the lack of magick.
Personally, I think the term “muggle,” coined from a work of fiction and used as an insult towards those who don’t follow someone else’s opinion as to the nature of the world, is just as bad as someone who insults the occult because of a lack of understanding. I think some scientists hold more awe about the multiverse than occultists do these days, because occultists are too busy thinking of themselves as special, and powerful, and bigger than they really are in the scheme of things. A scientist looks at his insignificance to the multiverse at large in awe and seeks to know more about it.