I'm honestly curious, and not trolling here. I've followed some of what Terry Davis has developed, and seen him pop up here frequently as a subject of interest to many. In every thread here, I've seen something like:
Person A: TempleOS is amazing, written by just one guy! I'd love to know more about Terry, someone should do a documentary!
Person B: Terry has a mental disorder, a documentary would just end up [making fun of him|causing more mental issues]
As I understand it he does not believe he has mental issues, but does believe everything he's doing is directly influenced by an entity he perceives to be his God. Any of his supposed mental issues can just as easily be explained as issues of deep faith, a faith most/all of us are incompatible with.
Maybe I'm missing something essential here but what's the difference between Terry Davis and anyone else who believes their lives are being influenced/led by the invisible forces that are part of their religion? If he's crazy, is his brand of crazy significantly different from that of the pope or anyone else who claims to be regularly spoken to by their God?
You may be honestly curious, but I don't think this is a very good topic for discussion here. The question "What is the difference between religion and mental illness?" is something that has been rehashed thousands of times both by famous philosophers and legions of Internet atheists. The short version of one useful answer is "The line is somewhat blurry, and obviously there have been many people who were both religious and mentally ill, but it's usually obvious because most religious people are able to function just fine in society and clearly do not have a crippling mental illness." To go further than that would be pretty far off-topic.
I also feel like it's somewhat in bad taste to attempt to debate this in the explicit context of a member here.
In his Vice interview [1] he does seem to acknowledge his mental illness and his diagnosis. But that does not mean he can't also (whether because of the mental illness or not) believe he is influenced by God.
But it's pretty clear that "his brand of crazy" is quite distinct from just deep belief. Most people with deepheld religious beliefs don't have manic episodes or start seeing people following them.
The claim to be regularly spoken to by God is extremely rare among the religious; I know of no modern Pope or other comparable mainstream religious figure who has publicly made such a claim.
I think it's fair to say that he's influence by the same thing that created religion in the first place. So yes God is speaking to him, just as God has spoken to all the mentally ill before him and told them to do things that have affected the world in various ways.
As for Terry being racist, so what... He's so far out there, and so far gone, that that's just another flaw in him that we have to accept/overlook.
We should simply accept him without judgment and take from his work whatever we feel like... Just as we do from religion or any other work of technology... People are free to do what they want, and it's not our right to get in the way of whatever they are attempting to accomplish, guided by whatever is out there or in here.
Person A: TempleOS is amazing, written by just one guy! I'd love to know more about Terry, someone should do a documentary!
Person B: Terry has a mental disorder, a documentary would just end up [making fun of him|causing more mental issues]
As I understand it he does not believe he has mental issues, but does believe everything he's doing is directly influenced by an entity he perceives to be his God. Any of his supposed mental issues can just as easily be explained as issues of deep faith, a faith most/all of us are incompatible with.
Maybe I'm missing something essential here but what's the difference between Terry Davis and anyone else who believes their lives are being influenced/led by the invisible forces that are part of their religion? If he's crazy, is his brand of crazy significantly different from that of the pope or anyone else who claims to be regularly spoken to by their God?