Oh thank you so much for this great comment! I really enjoyed reading it and appreciate the time you spent replying and reading my post! It is truly amazing to see that people will take the time and effort to debate your ideas.

I fully agree with all that you said. Sometimes I think my own understandings of things are so much in negative terms and problematic binaries that I get lost in my own traps/detail.

For sure, the split between cult and religion as you put it is 100% accurate and a mistake in some sense in my post.

I think your argument is so close to what Pierre Hadot tried to illustrate in his work. He states that he could see clearly in the literature when religion (Christian) took philosophy over and the split came between academic exegesis of texts and practical lived philosophy.

But I also want to add that I think that there is still something valuable regarding academic philosophy even with all of its problems of abstraction and being locked in the ivory tower. I think to some degree it is what the philosopher makes with that knowledge that sets academic and practical philosophy apart. So often I find myself reading some philosophy and end up using it in my day to day life and reasoning even if that philosophy was not intended for any practical and pragmatic use.

I hope this makes some sense and that it somewhat responds to your reply.