I sont think he pretends hes a guru. Ive never seen it, its his fanbase, just like peterson. You can say that about anyone with a social media platform who expresses an opinion.

I did his waking up meditation course. Spiritual atheism ****. There’s a lack of humility in his approach and he claims he can guide you to deep realizations about consciousness that monks who meditate for decades don’t **** with. Same with other endeavors he involves himself in he lacks humility. He’s the AI expert who can’t code. He’s an expert on Islam but has never lived in a Muslim culture. And he’s the atheist expert on eastern spiritualism.

i agree.

Atheists annoy me.

I used to be more hard-line about it like they were, always trying to chase down religion and superstition into the shadows.

Then I slowly but surely stopped giving a ****.

I don't care about nativity scenes, God on the dollar, etc.

If anything like you say I long for the symbolic meaning that religious people find. I am culturally a Catholic and when I go to church as an adult for the christening or baptism of some family member, a lot of the ritualistic and symbolic aspects of the ceremony actually speak to me much more than they ever did when I was a dumb kid believing in God and just waiting for church to be over.

It feels like some sort of connection to the past.

Plus Sam Harris gives Muslim extremists way too much credit for how theologically pure they are. He makes it sound like suicide bombs are an obvious conclusion to draw from the Quran based on the supposed theme of martyrdom.

Meanwhile, historically Hezbollah (shia) was the first Muslim group to start the trend of using suicide bombs for pragmatic purposes. Sunni groups like al Qaeda had to go through some pretty convoluted theological arguments amongst themselves before they could finally justify using it.

The reason it's so prevalent is purely tactical, the religious reasoning behind it was an after the fact rationalization.

Because of course the Quran clearly says not to kill yourself. Unfortunately for the Jihadis, there's no * after that verse that says unless you can take a bunch of other people with you.

I mean, I disagree with that. Politics and religion are interwoven. There's no one without the other in most societies.

Yeah there's nothing about this world that isn't shaped or framed by religion.

Well if that's the case, I guess I can see what youre saying. Ive never seen anything like that from him.

Nah I mean groups like al Qaeda clearly have a religious side to them that is not purely political

They were inspired by Sayyid Qutb and the likes who were similarly convinced 20th century Western culture was highly decadent, racist, and hypersexual.

If you try to base it strictly on the geopolitical view that they are opposing oppressive Western foreign policy, that begs the question why did al Qaeda denounce the US for when they finally decided to do something about the genocide in Indonesia, after the US sat by and let the Indonesians commit genocide against a local minority.

You shouldn't be so quick to always assume you know the answer

He came to that conclusion after visiting the US. He then went back to Egypt and preached that message, even against the local pan Arab secular govt. He was jailed and eventually tortured for his out spoken calls for terror against the state. At which point he further radicalized his views and spelled out the supposed logic behind murdering innocent civilians in favor of the cause.

He inspired them both through religion and circumstance

Yet when Russia invaded the jihadis took our help gladly

And when Indonesia started murdering the people out east Timor and we finally caved in and suggested they stop, we were rebuked by bin laden & co for " meddling in Muslim afairs"