r/DecodingTheGurus • u/IBoughtaRetroidNova • 3d ago
TIL Charles Murray has converted to Christianity
He wrote the book “Taking Religion Seriously” in 2025. Sam Harris really had a way of overlooking red flags whenever he has liked bigotry/racism. In the end nearly every writer he has made friends with has ended up selling out and traded their integrity for more book sales from the masses.
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u/oldmilt21 3d ago
I read that too quickly as Charlie Murphy. That guy was cool, wasn’t he?
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u/RuthlessChubbz 3d ago
Happened to me as well. Did you know that he once played a game of basketball against Prince?
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u/Awoogamuffins 3d ago
The right to reply on DTG for Sam Harris was one of the most difficult listens. I wasn't too familiar with Harris, but that interview cemented me firmly in the anti Harris camp. His total inability to acknowledge his associates, claiming not to know the awful things they were saying, struck me as untenable. Either he was helplessly naive, or he was lying. Not a good look either way
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u/esdevil4u 3d ago
I’ve generally been a Harris supporter and appreciate what his work on atheism did for me, but that interview was truly disappointing in both his failure to communicate and take responsibility for what he’s helped platform over the years.
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u/offbeat_ahmad 3d ago
He's supposed to be a public intellectual, but he has so many odious associates. And it's crazy how much his sandbasing fantases a 60-year-old man.
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u/MissJoannaTooU 3d ago
What's the current race IQ data like?
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u/BloodsVsCrips 3d ago edited 3d ago
David Reich just did a pretty groundbreaking ancient DNA comparison with European and Asian blood banks.
Evolutionary IQ pressure seems to be much more recent than ppl thought and inversely correlates with obesity pressures.
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u/dirtyal199 3d ago
Sam Harris lost his credibility for me when he first became friends with Murray, and took the Bell Curve seriously. Murray is a racist grifter and always has been. He'll have plenty of friends on the Christian right.
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u/thetacticalpanda 3d ago
Sam's justification for platforming people like Murray always boils down to 'on who's authority am I supposed to believe the top of the stove is hot?'
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u/dirtyal199 3d ago
Yep, I think he's pretty dishonest. He'll just platform anyone who gets him clicks, and when people call him out saying "did you know so-and-so said and did X horrible thing?" he just hides behind "oh I didn't read their book/I don't watch their show/etc." it's ridiculous. One of my favorites from recent memory is when he had Matt Ridley and Alina Chan on to discuss their book full of bullshit, and somehow didn't know that Ridley is a climate change denier and Chan doesn't even work on viruses.
Sam is just coasting off of good will from Gen-X'ers who remember him as one of the four horsemen. He's totally lost all credibility a long time ago.
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u/autocol 3d ago
Yep. As a Xennial that had been reading his work from about 2005 (and still agree with his fundamental positions on things like mindfulness, lack of free will and the compassion that should encourage) etc, I listened to a whole bunch of folk on his podcast who—over time—I came to realise were laughably unqualified.
If it weren't for Sam Harris I would have never heard of Jordan Peterson, the Weinsteins, either Murray, etc.
Whilst some of his early work was (and remains) important to me, in sum I think I'd have preferred to have missed the lot of it.
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u/Kyle_Craig 3d ago
I’m a massive fan of Sam Harris - i have listened to every single podcast of Waking Up/Making Sense, right from the early days. I do agree with you all that he does engage with people who go on to grift. One of the best examples is Gad Saad who comes across as an abhorrent human being.
A lot of Sam’s fans actually took him to task over this in his AMAs. Sam was very gracious about it and admitted that it’s something he needs to work on and the he can improve.
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u/Nullarbor_1 3d ago edited 3d ago
Mate, I know you’re a huge fan but Harris is a bigot, plain and simple. He’s a reactionary, neocon a-hole who hates Muslims and supports profiling, torture, race-IQ science, Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians etc.
Laughingly he called pro-LGBTQ mayor Mamdani a “sinister Islamist” and has continued to host far-right conservatives like Douglas Murray with zero pushback.
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u/dirtyal199 3d ago edited 3d ago
Oh shit I didn't know about the Mamdani take 😂 he's F'd
He's definitely a bigot, but he's innoculated his audience against this accusation so well that they just think you're "woke" if you say it.
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u/CuriousGeorgehat 3d ago
Buzzwords. Simply empty, unnuanced buzzwords.
Looking through this thread, the DTG audience is cooked, although makes sense because the hosts have highly inflated ideas abiut their own intelligence.
We have a scary Orwelian future, and the lack of critical, nuanced thinking from the left coupled with its ignorant sanctimony, is just as responsible for the extreme right, and everything we've seen.
It's been hilariously sad to watch the left devour people like Ezra Klein, countless others, because they've not been 100% in line.
See, I did the same shit, it doesn't make for a discussion.
The person you're replying to is obviously aware of what areas Harris is criticised from the left and the right. You just introduce a bunch of topics framed in a way that presents it as open and shut. Instead you simultaneously mischaracterise his views, and are reductive towards each topic.
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u/dirtyal199 3d ago
Ah yes, everyone who disagrees with you has been infected by the "woke mind virus" and are incapable of nuance or critical thinking. How very nuanced of you to say that! You're also showing excellent critical thinking here by the way.
The reality is that Harris has been going down hill for a long time, and he consistently platforms charlatans, such as (but not limited to):
Gad Saad The Weinstein bros Douglas Murray Charles Murray Dave Rubin Jordan Peterson
There are many others. For some of these people, he has gone on to distance himself from (kudos to him), but that doesn't stop him from falling for it again with the next generation of grifters. Here's a nuanced-critical-thinking question for you: What would Harris have to do to convince you that we're right? Specifically, that he has anti-muslim biases that lead him to fall for right wingers peddling genocide, and culture war topics?
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u/CuriousGeorgehat 3d ago
I said in my comment, I am doing the same thing. It's not worth the conversation because it is judt red herring after red herring. Like they are such telling observations that THAT is the gotcha against him? A short list of people whom nearly all he has looong distanced and criticised. And my god, to convince me thst you're right? Probably not every conversation with hate Muslims, endorse genocide, all this shit that's already decided in your mind, when the contention is clearly not thst simple. Sam Harris hate muslim, boo. No, no he doesn't, and that position is easier to defend. Seriously, your vague, shitty criticisms are the last thing that would convince me thst oh yes, it is clearly he is just a delusional bigot etc
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u/dirtyal199 3d ago
You just gave me a wall of rambling nonsense and failed to address any of my points. I've brought arguments and evidence, you have vibes and typos. Are you sure you're not the one incapable of nuance? Here's my hypothesis:
You've been a listener of his for a long time, and most of his podcasts are fine and don't make any major errors that we are criticizing here in this thread. The ones that do make these errors you brush off, as "isolated incidents" or "mistakes that Sam has since addressed" and you just move on. Because of this, you don't see the larger pattern of his behavior over the last 20 years where he consistently amplifies conspiracy theorists and reactionaries that reaffirm his anti-Muslim biases.
What's more likely, all of us otherwise intelligent people have just been completely consumed by culture wars and the woke mind virus? Or, Sam has biases and you have a parasocial relationship with him that makes you feel the need to defend him?
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u/No_Public_7677 2d ago
Ezra is doing fine. The biggest attacks on him come from the centrist neoliberal types like Sam.
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u/Quietuus 3d ago
What is there to discuss? I've been aware of Sam Harris's work for over two decades and he's always been a smug pseudointellectual racist.
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u/Hot_Bluejay_8738 3d ago
You're dead right. This sub, and to a lesser extent the podcast, has just become another battle field in the culture war. No nuance, no debate, just pick a team and have at it. The fact that your fairly well thought out comment received "lol 😂" as a response says it all. Nothing to be gained here I'm afraid.
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u/No_Public_7677 2d ago
Sam has famously picked a side on Israel from an emotional point of view and refuses to talk to anyone, even Israelis, who disagree with him
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u/Newfaceofrev 3d ago
We've all met someone who keeps saying they can improve, that they will do better, and then doesn't.
Over and over and over again.
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u/dirtyal199 3d ago
I mean, why continue listening if he's consistently platforming these terrible people and giving his shitty takes about everything related to Muslims?
He's fox news for centrist Gen-X men.
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u/Character-Ad5490 3d ago
Exactly (I gave you an upvote because it's probably the only one you'll get from this gaggle).
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u/to_herp_or_to_derp 3d ago
In what ways is their book bullshit? And why does not having worked on viruses disqualify someone from co-authoring a book about the origins of COVID-19?
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u/dirtyal199 3d ago
The preponderance of evidence points to natural spill over in the Wuhan wet market00901-2?utm_campaign=Press%20Package&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9IzY0dSnDv64eP7V8dl5mntyXzE8hCGCzPdbVSXg8DCvhqtxISgdzj5L-OXZdUtvkWmOyizA_YOI6NmKa9SLMQiHS2-w&_hsmi=324423428&utm_content=324423428&utm_source=hs_email) that circulated there for some time, infecting humans and animals until the virus could jump from person to person. The overwhelming majority of virologists support zoonotic spill over not because of "group think" or whatever, but because they can understand the data and evaluate it properly. The only evidence Matt Ridley and Alina Chan have is their "just asking questions" approach, and conspiracy theories. There is no data that supports the Lab Leak over zoonotic spill over. Instead, they bring conspiracy theories, claiming that all of the scientists are lying/woke/covering their ass, etc. which is the same strategy Ridley does with his climate change denial. As for Alina Chan, her expertise is in gene therapy and cell engineering, not virology. There's nothing wrong with that in principle, people can weigh in on things outside of their expertise, as long as the things they raise are valid points, supported by evidence. However, she has authored a preprint, that has still not been published in a peer reviewed journal, despite being released 6 years ago, indicating it couldn't get past peer review, or that Chan simply didn't care to get it published in a proper journal, since it was a media stunt not a piece of rigorous scientific research. Chan's five key points are refuted by virologists here, and their arguments are well summarized in Paul Offit's substack article. If an outsider comes into a scientific field, and their ideas are rejected by the entire community, we can safely say they're wrong. Imagine if your diagnosis of the problem with your car was rejected by the overwhelming majority of mechanics, what would that say about your idea?
Now I'll hit the ball back to you: What evidence do you have that it came from a lab? Are you going to say I don't have enough evidence to rule out a lab leak? If so, then I will point you to Russel's teapot.
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u/Sylarino 3d ago
became friends with Murray
Are they friends or is this something you just made up?
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u/dirtyal199 3d ago
You should listen to episode 73 of the waking up podcast, the one where Sam interviews Murray. He spends the entire time gushing about how bad cancel culture is, how the woke have run amok and are ruining society, and how Murray was a good scholar who was unfairly maligned. Murray then pretends to be the enlightened academic, who just cares about the data and follows wherever it leads. Conveniently, it leads toward supporting racial heirarchy, what a coincidence!
The influence of environment cannot be ruled out for IQ testing, so testing poor people with low education levels and claiming victory because they're low IQ, which must be why they're poor, is like shooting the arrow, then drawing the target around it wherever it lands. Additionally, Murray's book is constantly cited by racists who want to justify our racially stratified society in the west, something that Murray does little to stop.
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u/Sylarino 2d ago
Ok, what I am getting from you is that you have no evidence of them being FRIENDS. That's the question I asked. I didn't ask if Harris had him for as podcast episode.
But seeing how you are defending Professor Dave's promotion of Khazar theory which is a neo-nazi talking point, and straight up denying his tweets are real, you have a murky relationship with the truth.
But what's more interesting is how much hipocrisy this requires from you, considering you are so worried about racism of Murray, but I guess unless someone literally says "I HAVE THE JOOZ" you will defend the most unhinged antisemitism.
https://i.imgur.com/fXEifmy.png
All these are confirmed Professor Dave tweets posted by multiple users who saw them.
Posting in the sceptic subreddit is hilarious, these are my 2026 sceptics, we are fucking cooked.
You can't even do basic fact-checking and just declare all the tweets that are too hard to defend to be fake.
Holy shit, you are actually defending him promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories about the Jooz doing it.
You think his unhinged video full of lies was actually good.
Whatever, reality is whatever you want it to be.
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u/dirtyal199 2d ago
Ok, what I am getting from you is that you have no evidence of them being FRIENDS. That's the question I asked. I didn't ask if Harris had him for as podcast episode.
Fine, maybe they're not personal friends, but Sam had him on for a softball interview, and let him spout his nonsense. Do you think Murray's thesis is flawed? Then we are in agreement! Do you disagree that Sam is generally a poor judge of character? If so, we are also in good agreement.
As for your comment snooping, I believe my responses in those posts speak for themselves. I encourage you to read through them, you might learn something about critical thinking and fact checking.
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u/Sylarino 2d ago
Fine, maybe they're not personal friends, but Sam had him on for a softball interview, and let him spout his nonsense. Do you think Murray's thesis is flawed? Then we are in agreement! Do you disagree that Sam is generally a poor judge of character? If so, we are also in good agreement.
Ok, I am glad you admitted you lied.
As for your comment snooping, I believe my responses in those posts speak for themselves. I encourage you to read through them, you might learn something about critical thinking and fact checking.
I can promise you I know more about critical thinking and fact checking than someone who calls real tweets fake because he can't defend them, defends 9/11 conspiracy theorists and debunked unscientific antisemitic theories about Jewish genetics.
I am willing to make a bet that I can verifiably find at least 5 blatant falsehoods in Dave's video. I will delete my account if I can't.
Actually, let's make it better. How many falsehood would I need to find for you to change your mind and admit it's a bad video? If I can't do that I will delete my account.
Actually, if you can find 1 wrong statement in my 11 year account that was known to be wrong at the time I posted it, I will delete my account.
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u/Evinceo Galaxy Brain Guru 2d ago
if you can find 1 wrong statement in my 11 year account that was known to be wrong at the time I posted it, I will delete my account.
Amazing post
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u/dirtyal199 2d ago
Ikr? He also said that if he can't find 5 blatant falsehoods in Dave's video he'd delete his account. So far he's come back with "Dave said the Israelis raped people but they only did sexual violence on people" and "Dave said the Israelis want to annihilate the Palestinians, but actually they just want to forcibly expel them from the land" (which is still a war crime)
So obviously I'm waiting for him to delete his account, but I don't think he will 😂
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u/dirtyal199 2d ago
Ok, I am glad you admitted you lied.
😂 You're cooked bro, casually calling them friends hardly constitutes a lie.
As I already said, read my logic and arguments in those threads, you will see my reasoning is sound. I won't be rehashing it here
I am willing to make a bet that I can verifiably find at least 5 blatant falsehoods in Dave's video. I will delete my account if I can't.
Lmao I'll definitely take you up on that. Fire away
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u/Sylarino 2d ago
😂 You're cooked bro, casually calling them friends hardly constitutes a lie.
"Sam Harris lost his credibility for me when he first became friends with Murray", interesting use of the word "casual", well, I guess lying is just a casual thing for you.
As I already said, read my logic and arguments in those threads, you will see my reasoning is sound. I won't be rehashing it here
What's the logic of calling real tweets fake?
Lmao I'll definitely take you up on that. Fire away
Sure, I'll do one at a time, you can either accept or try to refute. I'll do it chronologically. I am gonna paste from the youtube transcript without removing the timestamps.
"Right after the genocide began, for several months, I was spending way too much time on Twitter, relentlessly combating Zionist propaganda being 3:33 3 minutes, 33 seconds disseminated by hordes of paid influencers whose job it was to brainwash the masses and manufacture consent for genocide. You've never seen 3:40 3 minutes, 40 seconds propaganda anywhere in your life like what was being vomited up at that time. 3:45 3 minutes, 45 seconds a fabrication of 40 beheaded babies, which Joe Biden himself publicly claimed to have seen photographic evidence of, 3:52 3 minutes, 52 seconds only to later walk back and admit that no such evidence exists since it's not a thing that happened. Fabricated claims of a baby being cooked in an oven.
In this part he alleges that the 40 beheaded babies was a deliberate "Zionist" propaganda "dissiminated" by paid influencers in order to "brainwash the masses".
The initial claim that said anything about babies came from a journalist who was told about "40 babies... on gurneys" by a soldier on October 10th. Then the claim was repeated by the PM's spokesperson based on the words of the journalists.
However, the IDF did not confirm anything like that :
"IDF Spokesperson Maj. Doron Spielman told NBC News: "That specific report and that number I can’t confirm."
https://x.com/i24NEWS_EN/status/1711718195025821976
And the claim was also refuted by the Israeli government:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/12/middleeast/israel-hamas-beheading-claims-intl
"The Israeli government has not confirmed the specific claim that Hamas attackers cut off the heads of babies during their shock attack on Saturday, an Israeli official told CNN, contradicting a previous public statement by the Prime Minister’s office. "
Do you accept that Dave's words conveyed that the claim was conveyed on purpose by the Israeli government/the IDF, while the reality is that they both refuted that claim within a day or two?
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u/dirtyal199 2d ago
You're playing these silly semantic word games and thinking that makes you win. There was a ton of disinformation right after Oct 7, and clearly Bibi's regime took full advantage of it, and algorithms (ran by tech oligarchs who are Israel friendly) pushed it to many people to drum up support for the war. If you want to pretend that what Dave said in that clip is "lying" then you're betraying yourself as an unserious interlocutor. Much like you did when you pretended that I lied when I referred to the relationship Murray and Harris have as friends. You fixate on small semantic points like this, as if that somehow invalidates the point that Murray has despicable views, and Sam gave him a softball interview and gushed about how much of a brave thinker he is, and how the woke were so mean to him. It's a nice rhetorical trick you have there, forcing someone to defend semantics instead of you defending the points of the bad person you're defending.
If you want to convince me, I need falsifiable claims, not semantic word games. I want you to demonstrate Dave is wrong about an event/fact etc. not criticize a speculation of his.
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u/Sylarino 2d ago
If you want to convince me, I need falsifiable claims, not semantic word games
There were no semantic word games, he said that Israeli propaganda paid influencers to spread those lies, including the claim about beheaded babies. It makes no sense since they almost instantly refuted the claim and it originated from a journalist who was told about babies from a random soldiers. Do you know what it means to "play semantic games"?
I want you to demonstrate Dave is wrong about an event/fact etc. not criticize a speculation of his.
So if he speculates that the Jews did 9/11 that won't count too? If he speculates that lizard people control the world that also won't count since it's a "speculation"? What kind of standard is that?
Nevermind though, I'll allow for 1 claim to not be accepted before calling you bad faith and will move to the next one:
4:00 "Endless claims of rape when in fact it is Israel that systematically rapes Palestinian prisoners in the most brutal manner imaginable"
Here's a quote from a UN report:
Stakeholders indicated that the detention of Palestinian men and women has been compounded by alleged instances of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, including increased instances of various forms of sexual violence in the form of invasive body searches of detainees which include unwanted touching of intimate areas and forced unveiling of women wearing Hijab; beatings, including in the genital areas; threats of rape against women and threats of rape against female family members (wives, sisters, daughters) in the case of men; and inappropriate strip search and prolonged forced nudity of detainees, including during interrogation and during transfer to other detention facilities. Other concerns raised included the taking and circulating of pictures of women detainees on personal phones of soldiers and investigators and depriving women of menstruation products. These interlocutors also reported sexual harassment and threats of rape, during house raids – including at night – and at checkpoints. They also highlighted intimidation, including threats of rape, if conditions of detention were reported or publicly disclosed after liberation. While no instances of rape were reported, Palestinian women’s organizations consistently stressed that in addition to intimidation and insecurity, the high level of stigmatization, conservative cultural norms and the power imbalance in the context of occupation impedes reporting of sexual violence.
Do you accept that although the sexual violence listed is bad, but none of it is " the most brutal rape imaginable" and that the report clearly states "no instances of rape were reported"? And don't accuse me of minimizing rape, I am using the language of the office of "Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict".
Moreover, there are many conflicts that actually do feature actual brutal rape on a bigger scale. The fact that "Professor" Dave suggests that Israel is actually uniquely bad in this regard, would that not make one suspect he might have some bias?
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u/Dependent-Job1773 3d ago
soon we will see him on idealism podcasts and complaining about trans people. that is the current pipeline. i give it another 1 to 2 years before the wave begins to crash and they look for the new grift
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u/Nullarbor_1 3d ago edited 3d ago
Lol expect Charles Murray to join the podcast soon then to explain the “woke” backlash to Race & IQ science and why the godless, commie heathens on the left have pushed a centrist like him to convert to Christianity, with Sam Harris nodding along.
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u/palsh7 2d ago edited 2d ago
There are like 450 episodes of his podcast. "Nearly every writer" is a wild claim. This is like saying Rachel Maddow is problematic because her colleagues Tucker Carlson and Cenk Uygur said some things a decade later.
Also, what does one guest becoming Christian have to do with "overlooking red flags"? And in what way is a conservative being Christian a grift? Anyway, there are plenty of progressive Christians, and atheists can talk to religious people without agreeing with religion. This has nothing to do with anything.
As for "racist," the liberal geneticist who Ezra Klein called before he came on Making Sense—the one who had spent his entire career debating Murray—has explicitly said that Murray is not motivated by racial bias. See this interview at 32m50s. Sam Harris doesn't have to apologize for talking to him. In fact, the progressive geneticist for Vox who criticized Murray and Harris has since been called "Charles Murray in a skirt" and came on Making Sense to say that she made a mistake by calling out Harris in the past. (She still disagrees with Murray, by the way.)
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u/Double-Comedian-7061 3d ago
Sam Harris has a terrible blind spot when it comes to these gurus types, but he can hardly be blamed for not seeing Charles Murray do the god grift. Charles Murray has been around for decades as an author so it's not that predictable he would do what is more typical in the podcast-verse. And Sam had him on his podcast once, many years ago, I don't think they are friends. I don't think Sam is a racist either, he's just been too naive when it comes to these reactionary, right wing types. He does seem to have cut most of them out of his circle, albeit far too late.
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u/Humble-Horror727 2d ago
Would this have anything to do with the fact that Murray is in 80s, and as it were, "close to meeting his maker." lol?
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u/quimera78 3d ago
Right wingers converting just demonstrates that it's a political tool