I am an anti-theist. Not only do I not believe in any kind of god, but I believe that the belief in god is inherently harmful. However, I am unaware of any good arguments against godless forms of spirituality. For example, many practicers of the occult do not attribute any perceived results of their magic to any god, but to their own will. What is inherently wrong with this?
it's not materialist, it assumes that the world can be changed though praying/wishing/willpower when in reality it can only be changed through our actions
Well, certainly it is harmful to expect to have an impact on the world through merely your own will. But would you have anything against someone who attempts to supplement real-world actions with some kind of ritual?
if they do stuff in the really world that's great, but there irrational beliefs are still irrational
But what is inherently wrong with irrational beliefs?
they tend to lead to irrational actions
^ This. Of course it's better if somebody only "supplements" his actions but it's still a waste of time and absurd to think your will/some rituals/gods,angles,demons can actually alter objective reality. The fact that somebody uses these supplements shows that he thinks his actions are not enough and need "spiritual backup" to be effective. This must affect his other actions sooner or later, too. It's very likely that if everything goes well he'll attribute this not to his actions and efforts but mainly to the angles he called for help/his superior will, while if it goes bad he will blame some "bad omen" or "negative energy" he "felt", etc. From here it's not a big step to become more and more irrational, replace your actions completely with rituals, be convinced that some persons are out to drain your energy and similar nonsense.
AHA. Thank you, Rjevan, that certainly completed my train of thought. I guess that regardless of whether or not some occult practice works, it still distracts attention away from the direct cause of objectively-aimed change, i.e. Real-world action. And even from an occultist point of view, real-world action can be seen as a more effective form of magic ritual, since all action has intention anyway, as opposed to the indirect, gnostic ritual, which has the paradoxical attribute of needing to be backed up by action anyway, while at the same time discouraging such direct methods. Well that simplifies things.
