DUTERTE CALLS GOD 'STUPID'

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte faced growing outrage yesterday in his largely Catholic nation after calling God "stupid", the latest furore he has sparked with an unfiltered broadside. Duterte took aim at the biblical creation story during a speech, raising the question of why God would create Adam and Eve and then expose them to temptation. "Who is this stupid God?" the Philippine leader asked on Friday. "You created something perfect and then you think of an event that would tempt and destroy the quality of your work." Leaders of the Catholic Church in the Philippines, which counts some 80 percent of the nation's more than 100 million people as believers, have condemned the statement.