Terry Davis, a schizophrenic programmer, has spent 10 years building an operating system to talk to God.
Terry Davis asks God about war ("Servicemen competing") and death ("awful"), about dinosaurs ("Brontosaurs' feet hurt when stepped") and His favorite video game ("Donkey Kong"). God's favorite car is a "Beamer," and His favorite singer is Mick Jagger, though if He could sing He'd want to sound like Christopher Hall from Stabbing Westward. His favorite national anthem is Latvia's. His favorite band is, no surprise, The Beatles, but Rush and Triumph are pretty good, too. Classical music is poison. The best thing Bill Gates could do to save lives, God says, is work on earthquake prediction. The Eleventh Commandment is "Thou shall not litter." Terry Davis tells God everything seems bad. God replies: "Plant trees."
The words pour out on TempleOS.org, a torrent of verified random numbers, news links, YouTube videos, and scriptural exegesis. It's the dense work of a single, restless mind writing ceaselessly without an audience.
After two months of emails and phone conversations, I know more than when I began; specifically, I've accumulated more raw data, more facts about his life and experience. But I suspect I've only sketched a shadow. The full reality remains unreachable, an irreducible mystery.
Jesse Hick’s article is perhaps the best thing ever written about Terry and his work, you guys should absolutely check it out. And when Jesse finishes his follow up article, we will of course link our listeners right to it.
Digital Human, Series 18, Episode 4: Devotion