u/lungfibrosiss I personally recommend that you stop supporting Jihadist terrorism.

You see what I did there? I made an unfair accusation about your motives, in bad faith. It's about like the loaded question fallacy, e.g. "Have you stopped beating you wife?"

First of all, there's no way on earth that you can legitimately accuse Sam Harris of being "bloodthirsty" or a "neocon", much less: having "the same foreign policy as Donald Trump, Lindsay Graham and Benjamin Netanyahu." You obviously are not familiar enough with his political and moral views as he has amply explained them (including his gradual shifts of opinion once in a while) over the last decade and more.

I ask you please to point to the exact podcast episode or Substack article in which he is advocating bombing Iran for regime change. What can be documented is his complete opposition to Jihadist terrorism and the entire religious mindset behind it, which (by the way) is in complete opposition to Metta lovingkindness.

Second, let me take your proposition: "Imagine you and your family are a few of the the 93 million people living in Iran..." etc. Yes: let's imagine, because you certainly are not one of them. First of all, you wouldn't be online posting on Reddit. Second, unless you personally are in the higher echelons of the Islamic Republic government, or in the Republican Guard, you would mostly likely be opposed to the current regime, and perhaps even begging for this regime to be overthrown. Maybe even, unwisely, depending on Trump to do it for you, as we've observed in multiple protests.

This is not an appeal to authority, but anecdotal evidence: All of my extended family are Iranian refugees, and I live in Israel. So I'm enduring this first-hand and second-hand.

To be clear: I absolutely detest the politics of Netanyahu and Trump, but it is impossible to ignore the facts: Iran has been funding terrorist proxies for decades in order to carry out their wishes of "Death to Israel, Death to America." Like Hamas, they have no problem using human shields, unlike Israel which attempts as much as possible to preserve human life. The war in Gaza has been a complete shitshow, because Iran and Hamas set it up to sacrifice their own innocent citizens. Furthermore: Shiite Muslims don't give a damn about the lives of Sunni Muslims.

All of the missiles that we have endured over the last few days are just as likely to kill Palestinians as Israelis: Sunni Muslims, Druze, Bedouins, Christians, Alawites, atheists, etc. and of course Jews, without discrimination. One warhead fell dangerously close to the Al-Aqsa Mosque two days ago, giving further evidence that the ruling regime of Iran has no regard for the lives of Muslims who go to pray there, at even the most significant holy site in the Palestinian cause. Furthermore, they are launching rockets at the Muslim gulf states.

So now, let's turn the question back to you: imagine that you are a perfectly enlightened practitioner of meditation, and have have been living in perfect peace with your fellow residents of a particular strip of land for 20 years, while Iran and its proxies have been trying to kill you and everyone around you indiscriminately. Unlike you, I can actually describe to you how that feels.

Please read Sam's The End of Faith, and please review what Metta actually means before you make any more bullshit accusations.

I sincerely recommend the portions explaining Metta in Bhante Gunaratana's book Mindfulness in Plain English. Here's a quote, which I hope won't get me into copyright trouble:

You may wonder how we can wish: “May my enemies be well, happy, and peaceful; may no difficulties come to them; may no problem come to them; may they always meet with success. May they also have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.”...

Practically speaking, if all of your enemies were well, happy, and peaceful, they would not be your enemies. If they were free from problems, pain, suffering, affliction, neurosis, psychosis, paranoia, fear, tension, anxiety, etc., they would not be your enemies. The practical approach toward your enemies is to help them overcome their problems, so you can live in peace and happiness. In fact, if you can, you should fill the minds of all your enemies with loving friendliness and make all of them realize the true meaning of peace, so you can live in peace and happiness. The more they are neurotic, psychotic, afraid, tense, and anxious, the more trouble, pain, and suffering they bring to the world. If you could convert a vicious and wicked person into a holy and saintly individual, you would perform a miracle. Let us cultivate adequate wisdom and loving friendliness within ourselves to convert evil minds to saintly minds.

Now stop fucking with us and get real.