President Rodrigo Duterte says he’s neither an agnostic nor an atheist. He believes in God. But he has a challenge: If anyone can to prove to him that God exists – by showing him a selfie with the Creator – he will resign.
“By the way, I believe in one Supreme God. I never said I do not believe in God. I am not agnostic. I am not an atheist. I just happen to be a human being believing there is a universal mind somewhere which controls the universe,” he said during the opening of the National Science and Technology Week in Davao City Friday.
“So I do not believe in God? Yes, of course there is God,” he added.
Duterte, however, said he would want somebody to show up and say he had gone to heaven and come down to earth to prove the existence of God.
“Bring me one person, just one, who would say, ‘Mayor, those silly guys from the Church told me to go to heaven and talk to God. There is really God. Here, we have a picture, I bought a selfie’,” he said in Filipino.
“You do that today, one single witness that there is a guy, a human being who was able to talk to see God,” he added. “Of the so many billions who had been on here [on earth], I just need one. And if there is one, ladies and gentlemen, I will announce my resignation immediately.”
The President also refuted the concept of original sin, which came about because, as related in the Bible, Adam and Eve were banished from Eden for disobeying God.
“So where is the logic of God there? You create the perfect thing and then spoil it with a snake and an apple and you give us a sin that we never agreed to commit and that is the original sin,” he said.
The President also attacked the Church for collecting funds from the people to “maintain the palaces and the luxurious things that the rest of humanity do not have.”
Duterte has made similar statements on God and the Creation before, which draw flak from several personalities in religion and politics.