“Your God is Stupid” President Duterte

Introduction to Duterte

President Duterte has done it again. Our very colorful president here in the Philippines has ruffled the feathers (to say the very least) of Christians in the country when he said “your god is stupid”.

Purpose of the Article

This article is in no way siding or going against him. The president could have said this statement as well as his other well known incendiary remarks for a variety of reasons. He could be blunt and speaks from his heart with no concern for the repercussions of his statements. He could be joking with a wierd sense of humor. He could be psychologically challenged. He could be threatening his adversaries with such remarks in order to keep them in their place.

This article will not delve on that, as this angle has already been discussed by authors in their articles and has even been debated amongst the internet savy crowd in facebook and in various discussion groups.

What I would want to touch on is how his statements on religion and spirituality may impact the spiritual belief system of Filipinos for better or for worse.

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Understanding the “Spiritual but not Religious”

The following article is no way made to convince you to be “spiritual but not religious. It was made to allow you to understand them and the way they “think”. A lot of atheists and theists as well consider spirituality and religiosity the same thing. A growing number of people however have considered the two words different and claim that they are “spiritual but not religious”.

If you are fond of visiting internet forums which discuss religion, spirituality or even atheism, you have probably heard of the following question, “what do you call people who believe in god, but do not subscribe to any specific organized religion”. Then the post gets a lot of answers, deist, agnostic, etc. Some will even say that those people do not exist. Actually, I believe that the proper term for this is “spiritual, but not religious”.

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An Open Letter to Our Readers

Fellow Critical Thinkers,

On behalf of Mark T. Market, I wish to apologize for the delay on new posts.  I also regret to announce that the The Critical Thinker will be on hiatus for awhile due to unavoidable circumstances.

As you may know, Tropical storm Ondoy slammed into the Philippines on Sept.26, Saturday morning, and within 24 hours poured nearly 17 inches of rain, the heaviest rainfall in 40 years, on the capital and its surrounding areas.  The torrential floods burst dams and swept cars from the street. Mark and his family are one of the hardest hit by the hurricane, and while they survived, they have lost their home, their car, and all their belongings, leaving them only with the clothes on their backs.

As a long time friend of Mark, I have organized some friends to provide support for him and his family during this unfortunate disaster. Of course we will welcome any financial contribution from our readers as well. If you can and would like to help Mark get back on his feet, please leave a note and I will send you some details.

Below are some videos taken by ordinary citizens, detailing the devastation caused by the typhoon. The first one in particular is taken from a place not far from Mark’s home.

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