I just stumbled upon this thread of answers - this error is such a Bogus error.#error: cannot stat 'reddit/app/views/links': Permission denied
That's all I got - when trying to merge. I read a few of the answers and then came to the realization - all I had to do was close my code editor which happens to be Atom.
Once closing the editor - I ran "git merge" again and boom , it worked.
What a pointless error:(