Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is a psychopath. Duterte’s approach to drug abuse and trafficking brought the praise of American sociopath Donald Trump, but most governments rightly condemned him for murdering addicts and traffickers alike. Duterte sees himself as a Filipino version of President Trump. Trump admires thugs, autocrats, and dictators, and I suspect if it weren’t for the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law, the president would likely behave as Duterte does. Imagine how Trump would resolve the immigration problem if he were unencumbered by law and public opinion.
Last Friday, Duterte riled up Catholics and Evangelicals in a televised speech shown on CBS News when he said:
Who is this stupid God? This son of a bitch is then really stupid. How can you rationalize a God? Do you believe?
[Duterte lamented that Adam and Eve’s sin in Christian theology resulted in all the faithful falling from divine grace.] You were not involved but now you’re stained with an original sins [sic] … What kind of a religion is that? That’s what I can’t accept, very stupid proposition.
Perhaps Duterte knows the Christian God better than offended Christians think he does. You know the old adage, it takes one to know one. Duterte, a psychopath, knows a fellow psychopath when he sees HIM.
Filipino Catholic Bishop Arturo Bastes had this to say about Duterte:
Duterte’s tirade against God and the Bible reveals again that he is a psychological freak, a psychopath, an abnormal mind who should have not been elected as president of our civilized and Christian nation.
Ponder, for a moment, what Bishop Bastes is saying here; that people who don’t believe in the existence of the Christian God and don’t buy the notion of original sin have abnormal minds and are uncivilized. Evidently, Bastes has never read anything about the history of his church; especially the days when people were tortured and murdered by the church, and secular powers blessed by the Catholic church pillaged countless villages, raped women and girls, and murdered thousands of people.
Duterte is an interesting psychopath to the degree that he doesn’t see religion as a tool to use for the advancement of his cause. In this regard, Duterte is different from the American Psycho. The president, every bit the atheist that I am, understands how valuable certain Christian sects — namely Evangelicals, conservative Catholics, and Mormons — are to the advancement of his anti-human agenda. Trump knows as long as he pretends he cares about abortion, religious “freedom,” and other hot-button cultural issues, Evangelicals, Catholics, and Mormons will continue to support him. Trump, I’m sure, is paying attention to the outrage over Duterte’s comments. Just say the right things, Donald, the president says to himself, and take care of My Evangelicals®, and they will make me dictator for life! Praise Jesus, right?
It seems odd for a despot not to play the religion card.
As for Trump he’s not an atheist… Trump is an egotheist someone who believes they are a deity. And of course Trump loves the pomp and pageantry of religion
Good point. Trump believes in one deity — DJT.
There are assholes of all religion’s and of no religion. One’s belief in a deity or deities isn’t necessarily tied to whether one is a psychopath or not.
Other descriptions I’ve seen use apatheist to label Trump, but a lot of people are apatheist, they just don’t care