Is this Necessary?

When we talk about any form of cosmological argument whether it’s from Thomas Aquinas or something as sophisticated as Dr. Craig’s Kalam Argument, the issue about “necessary” will always enter the picture.

So let us just talk about what most theists meant when they use the word “necessary.”

A Brute Fact?

I’ve notice that whenever God believers talk about the cosmological argument they always start the conversation that God as a necessary Being is a brute fact. That prompts Prof. Richard Dawkins to say, "They make the entirely unwarranted assumption that God himself is immune to the regress" (The God Delusion, p 101). That means before everything else, I have to accept the fact that God exist.

Getting a little bit technical, that means God is a necessary truth – if you conceive of it as false, you’ll end up contradicting yourself, because its truth is built right into the concept that composed it. To know that it is true, you don’t have to know anything but the meaning of those concepts; you don’t have to know any other facts about the world. So it is either God exist or the whole universe is unexplainable. This has something to do with the Principle of Sufficient Reason. According to this principle, nothing can exist without a sufficient reason for its existence.

This is an advance form of Anselm’s ontological argument. According to Norman Malcolm what we have to accept in talking about God is the following: (1) Either God’s existence is logically impossible or (2) it is logically necessary for God to exist. But we can’t select the first option since God is the greatest conceivable being we can think of. For God not to exist is a defect which contradicts the concept of God’s very nature. (Not a very good selection to choose eh?) So when we apply the Principle of Sufficient Reason, then VIOLA! God exist!

And what is the “sufficient reason?”

Bertrand Russell explained that the contingency argument rest on a misconception of what an explanation is and does and singularity on what it is that makes phenomena “intelligible.”

Suppose we have been asked to explain why Benigno Aquino III won the 2010 election. Do we have to look for his genealogy or to go back to Prehistoric Philippines to answer this? We can always answer things like his popularity on his rivals or the fact that because of his famous mom and dad, he became too popular to most Filipino voters. We can think of different reasons (causes and effects) but what matter is that we understand the reason. As stated by Russell, in order to explain a phenomenon or to make it intelligible, we don’t need to posit a necessary being.

God believers says that the Principle of Sufficient Reason can’t be wrong since it has been a part of the scientific worldview for a long time in the sense that scientists are committed not only in figuring out the way the world is but also the reason why it is that way. That’s true…but science is controlled by rules of discourse. In science necessarily entails objectivity whose propositions are constructed from data.

Going back on the issue, the facts of the matter in the issue of “necessary” is that there really aren’t any established reason to say that the existence of anything (including God) as necessary. Can you tell me one?

Necessary truths are not established on the basis of sense-experience. They are either intuitively analytic or deduced from intuitively acceptable premises. Logical and mathematical truths are generally regarded as the paradigms of necessary truths. It is a difference between “matters of logic” from “matters of facts”.

Want to know the difference?

OK…It is matters of logic to say that a triangle is an angle with 3-sides…Now to say that it doesn’t you are contradicting yourself. But it is a question of fact which logic alone cannot settle whether there’s a giant triangle standing in the middle of EDSA near Cubao’s Farmer’s Plaza on October 27, 2010 at exactly 7:30 AM.

Necessary truth can only be applied to statements because logic applies only on statements. So to accept that God is the most perfect, conceivable being I can imagine is a necessary truth and to say that it doesn’t exist will lead me to a contradiction. But to say that this “most perfect, conceivable being I can imagine” is here, talking to me right now and He’s wearing a pink boxer short…well…we’ll have a problem with that.

Ciao!

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If you have some questions or comments on the article, send the author an e-mail at pinoy_atheist@yahoo.com. Thank you.

Faith as a Virtue?

October 25 will be election time again and this time we’re going to elect local candidates that will represent our baranggay. Funny that most of these aspiring candidates include Bible verses or the name of God on their campaign slogans and printed materials as if belief in God is a plus. It was not surprising that when Mrs. Aquino died in August 1, 2009, many reporters and articles (on newspapers, magazines, TV talk shows and the Internet) have pointed out her being faithful. The former President in known to her devotion to the rosary and the Roman Catholic Church.

I won't criticize her on her personal devotion to God. That's her business. What I'm after is how the common masses assume that when a person is devoted to God that makes him/her a good leader. As if faith is a positive virtue.

Believers assume everyone (even atheists and agnostics) have this er…faith. They say that non-believer have faith in the books that they read. They also say that we used faith daily in our lives. When we ride a taxi or a plane, we have faith that the driver or the pilot knew what he or she is doing. And so on.

So is this the same faith we used when talking about religious belief?

If you try looking in the dictionary, we see that faith is sometimes expressed to be synonymous with the word ‘trust’. Maybe that’s what some believers meant when they assume that even non-believers have faith. But we’re talking about faith in a religious sense. Trust or confidences about a high degree of belief are used for some certain claims or products. Well…your trust may be ill-based or inadequate. Your confidence from something or someone might be reasonable or unreasonable – but this is not the faith we are talking about. Trust or confidence doesn’t make a worldview. The faith that we are talking about doesn’t require any empirical evidences unlike some advertisements that show us data or statistics perhaps…Nope. This type of faith creates gods.

When our leaders rely in this kind of faith it means we as a nation are wishing for a Divine Providence to fix our problems by using His divine will for us…as if we can’t do it without the aid of a supernatural wishy-washy!

Hey! Believers will still insist that faith can strengthen or will. Just look at what happened in those miners that were trapped for two months in Chile, right?

Really huh? Remember that the will to survive is stronger that the will of God. If those miners surrendered their fate to the will of our Lord, I don’t think there will be any survivors left. Those Bibles and prayers just served as an inspiration to their will to live and even without those religious paraphernalia, the love to family and friends (plus the nature of the cave-in, air pockets, etc.) will also serve the same effect.

But was it an act of faith?

If we will define faith base on how religious believers define it then the answer is no. Even if those miners believed that God will save them, they still acted together to ensure their survival. The will to live is to cling on worldly matter, not on spiritual salvation.

Going back to the Philippine scenario. To believe that God will work a miracle to save your country is a different matter. When people start to believe that religious faith is a very important factor in selecting their leaders that spells trouble. Since God cannot (and doesn’t) speak certain people will claim to do the speaking for Him.

Bishops, priests, pastors and Ayatollah will imposed their doctrines and dogmas, their opinions based on their sacred writings to the rule of the land. Faith is now replaced by theocracy run by these “holy men.” Sacred books and divine knowledge will replace text books and science. Prayers will replace medicine and divine revelation will replace experiments.

The problems of this kind of faith are more than just believing, for this type of faith requires obedience and total control of someone’s life. Since this so-called “Supreme Being” is invisible, men will rely to the visible so-called self-appointed spokespersons of God, giving these “men of God” total power to control his life.

So this is what this faith can offer. It is an invisible shackle that some people are willing to place on themselves. It is a blindfold that believers willingly cover their eyes – a voluntary rejection of knowledge. A nation whose sovereignty wrapped by a thick veil of this faith is trap - it will never prosper and its people will remain ignorant. It will be ensnared in the doctrines of a few Ecclesiastical authorities.

Being a lifetime religious stooge is not a virtue.

Lack of Belief in Gods

Explaining the concept, refuting common objections and giving a number of reasons that atheists are sometimes 'fervent'.

Morals Without God?

By FRANS DE WAAL
I was born in Den Bosch, the city after which Hieronymus Bosch named himself. This obviously does not make me an expert on the Dutch painter, but having grown up with his statue on the market square, I have always been fond of his imagery, his symbolism, and how it relates to humanity’s place in the universe. This remains relevant today since Bosch depicts a society under a waning influence of God.

More of the article HERE.

Critical Analysis of "Case for a Creator"

More of these videos and others @ SupportExtantDodo's Channel

Damaso!!!

Padre Damaso was a portrait - a perfect caricature of Roman Catholicism in the Philippines.

Dámaso Verdolagas was a perfect villain. Cunning, self-righteous hypocrite Damaso was a man of faith who hides a dark, immoral secret. A meddler with little concern to those he hurts.

Padre Damaso was an antagonist, just like today’s bishops (not only in Rizal’s time) – those who use religion not only as a shield, but also as a weapon, protection, citadel, fortress and armor.

It is not a new story, not even in the late 19th century Philippines. The Roman Catholic Church has been using it so-called divine right to meddle in secular affairs. Let us start from the beginning…no, not from Jesus who said to render unto Caesar what is Ceasars’ (Matthew 22:21).

Let us start from the Fathers of the Church. Ambrose (374-397 CE) was once a lawyer and the Governor of Liguria before becoming the Bishop of Milan insisted that the Catholic Church is supreme even to the Emperor. According to him, the emperor is within the church, not above it. Augustine (354-430 CE) wrote The City of God and on its pages he declared the infallible authority of the Catholic Church. According to him, if the state wants to be a part of the City of God, it has to obey the Church.

By the Middle Ages it was a tradition that only if kings walked the ways of righteousness, as the Church interpreted those ways, could they obtain felicity, good harvest and victory over their enemies. In that time, the king (which represents the state) gets his authority from the blessing of the Pope (Catholic Church) who believed to be the direct representative of Jesus here on earth…and that is not enough.

Lothario Conti who would later become Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) declared himself as the half-way between God and man. He imposed that everything in the world is the province of the Pope and that St. Peter has been ordained by Jesus to govern not only the universal church but the entire secular world.

And what did the Catholic Church gained? It acquired lands and riches that were given by kings that became patrons and this gave the Catholic clerics strong control over men.

Ekskommunikado Ka!!!

Because of these recent events in the issue of artificial birth control and responsible parenthood, the word excommunication was again resurrected from its forgotten slumber.

Excommunication was the Roman Catholic answer to those who defy their orders…well that was when most people still believe in curses and bad omen. In those times, excommunication is the most horrifying thing that can happen to a person. When a person was excommunicated he is persons are barred from participating in the liturgy in a ministerial capacity and from receiving the Eucharist or the other Sacraments. Well…your chances of going to heaven will be quite slim.

It was believed that social ostracism as form of a discipline can be found in the Bible (Matthew 18:17) but the idea originated in the pagan ritual of divotio. It was first described in detail in a 3th century Syrian document, the Didascalia. In 1078, Pope Gregory VII produced the Quoniam multus which was designed as a rule dealing with excommunicants. In fact, Gregory VII extended the idea and practice of excommunication.

In the Catholic Church, formal excommunication is normally resolved by a statement of repentance, profession of the Creed (if the offense involved heresy), renewal of obedience by the excommunicant and the declaration of the reconciliation itself during the act of confession.

Here in the Philippines, it is said that all Catholics who participated in the creation of an independent church in the Philippines, in 1902 were excommunicated. Also, Xavier Eubra de Borja was excommunicated by Bishop Honesto Ongtioco of the diocese of Cubao in the Phillipines. de Borja untruthfully claimed to be an ordained priest when he was a layman even offering Mass and hearing confessions.

Canon 1398 provides that, "a person who procures a successful abortion incurs an automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication." This means that at the very moment that the abortion is successfully accomplished, the woman and all formal conspirators are excommunicated. There are no laws in the Roman Catholic canon that says using artificial contraception can lead a person to be excommunicated.

Responsibility

Dr. Jose Rizal (1861-1896) wrote the Noli to distinguished the true religion from the false, the superstitious from that commercialism that uses the sacred word to extort money, to make us believe in foolish things, of which Catholicism would be ashamed if it had known from them…that is his own words. Well, as we recall our history, Catholicism was used by Spain not just to…er…spread the Good News.

Even today, the Roman Catholic Church still insist that its stand against artificial birth control is a call against the moral implication of these methods. The church is adamant that it is only protecting the state against immorality. But is morality the only issue? How about doctrines…are that also a part of the responsibility?

The main reason why the Catholic Church is against artificial birth control is found in their doctrines that promotes Natural Law. Artificial birth control methods alter God’s intention – the natural consequences when man and woman form a union. Pope Paul VI in his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae condemned artificial birth control methods as he said the following:

But the Bible gives clear and direct guidance on many topics of morality, but not on birth control. In fact, the Bible is clear in that matter that if a fetus died but still unformed, the person that accidentally killed it will not receive the death penalty (Exodus 21:22). The Bible is also specific that life came from the blood (Leviticus 17:11)…so does that follow that a fetus is truly human when he is 18 to 21 days after conception?

Therefore We base Our words on the first principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage when We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children. Equally to be condemned, as the magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary. Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.

Catholics believe that God gave humanity with stewardship to all of what He created. Does it also follow that it is natural for humans to seek all available alternatives?

Today the issue of over-population is turning our survival at a balance and the time has come for Roman Catholics to recognize that traditional dogmas can’t save us. Responsibility doesn’t end on conception, it starts there. Responsibility also includes thinking for your child and your neighbor’s welfare.

We must stop listening to Padre Damaso. All he did was to bring despair and hopelessness to Maria Clara and Ibarra. Personal theologies and doctrines are not solutions. What we must do is to throw Damaso and let the “Pilosopong Tasyo” re-kindle our rationality to save our own patrimony.

Kumakalam Nanaman

In my recent article regarding the Kalam Argument on the existence of God, I have a...well...a reaction from a certain Christian reader. Ok…let me address his comments and at least the said comments can serve as an update on how Filipino Christian apologists approached the Kalam argument (as I have said in the last article, we all need an upgrade).

Christian: on Premise 1, William Lane Craig has already answered the atheist’s question. (Link: Question 106: Is God Actually Infinite?)

Is that the answer of premise 1? Let see…

(1) Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence.

I don’t even see any question to this premise.

I think what the premise is saying is that everything that came to existence has a cause.

Now going back to the issue, it seems the Christian taught that I was talking about the infinite existence of God. The issue here is if actual infinity cannot exist and God is infinite then how did He have lived through an infinite number of hours. I'm not talking about God but on the infinite "hours" that God have lived His life in another dimension.

Well, the best response here that a Christian can used is that God is outside time.

So again, that brings us to the problem of a God that is outside time.

Another response is that God’s time is different from the time in our universe. God’s time is different than our way of viewing things. It is much larger. Really?

So how can we be certain of this “God time?” Well, Dr. Craig calls this a “God’s metaphysical time.” (For more about Craig’s metaphysical time see: http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/wes/metaphysical-time.pdf)

According to Dr. Craig, metaphysical time is tensed, dynamic, and non-relative. There is an ever changing fact of the matter about which events are future, which present, and which past. Future events become present, present events become past, and past events sink further and further into the past. Now does this metaphysical time have a beginning? Yes according to Dr. Craig and the very first event in metaphysical time must be a timeless person.

If I’m going to accept this God could have created this metaphysical time long before creating the space-time of our universe, it follows that there could have been something temporally prior to the earliest point in space-time, and Dr. Craig’s argument for creation ex nihilo would then be false.

Anyway, according to Dr. Craig, "denying that God is actually infinite in the quantitative sense in no way implies that God is finite. This inference does not follow, since the quantitative sense of infinity may be simply inapplicable to God." In short, only finite things are under that rule (pwera ang diyos).

So here's the problem. Actual infinite cannot exist, yet an absolute infinite time can exist (that’s the time when God created the metaphysical time of course)..weh?

Those who started the Kalam argument feels that time is finite...for example, al-Kindi felt that time was finite because an actual infinite is impossible and time is a quantitative thing that must be finite in measure (1979, 25). Saadia also felt that the concept of infinite time is reduced to absurdity because of the problem of regressing an actual infinite (Craig, 1979, 39).

So that's it...time is finite, yet God existed for an “infinite time”...oh well...

The Christian may not have been updated after all when he said: “God is outside our universe. He is also not subjected to time.” For WLC, God is “timeless, spaceless”(http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5180), which is different from the Christian’s response.

Moreover, I wonder where the Christian got the idea when he said,“God created this ‘place’ on his own being.” Actually he was led into it by the previous answer of the atheist, because he himself gave the wrong answer to the atheist.

Additional:

On timeless and spaceless:

“For as the cause of space and time, this entity must transcend space and time and therefore exist atemporally and non-spatially, at least sans the universe. This transcendent cause must therefore be changeless and immaterial, since timelessness entails changelessness, and changelessness implies immateriality. Such a cause must be beginningless and uncaused, at least in the sense of lacking any antecedent causal conditions. Ockham’s Razor will shave away further causes, since we should not multiply causes beyond necessity. This entity must be unimaginably powerful, since it created the universe out of nothing.” —WLC (http://www.euroleadershipresources.org)/resource.php?ID=51)

What are the problems to such claims? According to John R. Lucas, “To say that God is outside time, as many theologians do, is to deny, in effect, that God is a person.” (Concepts of Person and Christian Ethics by Stanley Rudman p. 154) He continues, "if I will try to resolve the problem of God's omniscience by making him timeless, I may create a worse problem by denying to Him the essence of what it means to be a person."

Ah OK...so a timeless and space less God is not a person. I can't make a relationship with a non-person, can you?

The western Christian God is a personal god. He is a deity who judge people. This god in not a mere impersonal being - he thinks, imagine, act, he has emotion - he can be jealous, happy, sad and angry (a lot)

Being outside time.

The guy to be blamed here is the pagan philosopher Plotinus (204-207 CE). Plotinus took the idea from Plato who took it from guys like Parmenides. So, if you guys want a God who is quite beyond intellectual discourses, you can always rely on Plotinus to do the job right (Yep, Plotinus is also the guy who invented the Trinity Doctrine).

Now, since God is considered immutable (cannot and does not change) it was deem to be compatible on being timeless (again...thanks to the Neo-Platonists). Immutability and being eternal are Greek ideas of a perfect god.

If you believe that God is a person, well...you might encounter some problems.

A timeless being cannot think since mental events and successions of thought use up time. He doesn't have any intelligence since thinking and planning requires time. Also, a timeless being is a block of stone since time is necessary for movement. In relation with space, a being who is timeless and space-less will be trapped in his own attributes.

On Premise 2:

With the introductory statement:

Pinoy Atheist just dumped Physics’ own definition of the universe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe). I wonder how he could even start discussing about the universe with an atheist-physicist, if he could not even agree with the physicist in the definition of the universe.

With Pinoy Atheist’s question:

“Now if the universe is not included (or the same as) everything, then how can its beginning (the universe) the same with the beginning of everything?” he should ask a physicist, because that is physics’ claim.

Defining the Universe.

The Christian seems to define the word universe base on a physicist's definition...now, how can we define the word "universe?"

According to his own source, the Wikipedia, it defines the universe as commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all physical matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space, although this usage may differ with the context. The term universe may be used in slightly different contextual senses, denoting such concepts as the cosmos, the world, or nature.

The word universe was derived from the Old French word Univers, which in turn derives from the Latin word universum.The Latin word was used by Cicero and later Latin authors in many of the same senses as the modern English word is used. The Latin word derives from the poetic contraction Unvorsum — first used by Lucretius in Book IV (line 262) of his De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) — which connects un, uni (the combining form of unus', or "one") with vorsum, versum (a noun made from the perfect passive participle of vertere, meaning "something rotated, rolled, changed"). Lucretius used the word in the sense "everything rolled into one, everything combined into one".

So what's the difference between everything and the universe?

Well just look at your dictionary folks. Everything means, "All things or all of a group of things."

Now again...is the universe included with everything or is it separate? If 'universe' is defined as the same as 'everything' (or vice versa) then a set should not be considered a number of itself. Now if the universe is not a member of itself, its beginning is not the same with the other beginning. Simple rule huh? And of course I don't need to bother a physicist about it.

Pinoy Atheist claimed he dumped Premises 1 & 2. I did not even see any falsification that “The universe began to exist” in his presentation/imaginary discussion. I can’t even trace what he believes about the universe: if it eternal or temporal or what? So how does this dump the idea that “the universe began to exist,” if Pinoy Atheist affirms spontaneous cause of the universe? Did he not just agree with Premise 2?

Hmmmm...Seems he doesn't have any idea about syllogisms.

Now let's see, did I agree with Premise 2? In syllogism, the axiom or premises are not independent with one another. That means each premise is in relationship with each other. Now let see... In premise one: Everything that exists has a cause must follow premise 2 that the universe began to exist so we can have the conclusion that the universe has a cause.

Let’s review the following syllogism:

(1) Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence.

(2) The universe has a beginning of its existence.

So how did I eliminate those two?

In Premise (1) we found a problem in the word “everything”. 1.) It doesn’t include God. Remember that the Kalam argument is proving the existence of God, right? So why he is already excluded in the argument?

In Premise (2) I am questioning if the universe and “everything” (in premise 1) is the same entity?

So if Premise (1) and Premise (2) has a problem, how can we arrive at the conclusion?

If he says that I agreed to premise two that..."the universe began to exist in spontaneous cause” that violates premise one and that will have an effect with the conclusion. Oh, and why talk about what I believed? The article is not about me.

There are at least 10 possible interpretations of quantum mechanics, including determined and indeterminate. It cannot be conclusively said that quantum mechanics are spontaneous and accidents, not yet! Moreover, physicists are having a hard time proving that quantum mechanics can cause a universe. Probabilistic Causation is not WLC's own. It is part of Philosophy

Who's saying the term probabilistic causation is Dr. Craig's own invention? You can find some references about this on Dr. Craig and Dr. Smith discussion on that matter (Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology By William Lane Craig, Quentin Smith).

Dr. Craig claims that quantum events are caused in a non predetermined manner which he calls probabilistic causality. That means the cause could be accidental, spontaneous - not predetermined.

I've already wrote a response to this base on David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779)

According to David Hume, "In such a chain too, or succession of objects, each part is caused by that which preceded it, and causes which succeed it. Where then is the difficulty? But the whole, you say, wants a cause. I answer that the uniting of these parts into a whole, like the uniting of several distinct counties into one kingdom, or several distinct members into one body, is performed merely by an arbitrary act of the mind, and has no influence on the nature of things. Did I show you the particular causes of each individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter, I should think it very unreasonable should you afterwards ask me what was the cause of the whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in explaining the cause of the parts."

That means when we speak of causes there must be an explanation for an event. Spontaneous events don't have any explanation. No explanation, no cause.

Let’s be a little scientific here… According to Quintin Smith, “The wave function of the universe in Hartle and Hawking's paper gives a probabilistic and noncausal explanation of why our universe exists. More precisely, it provides an unconditional probability for the existence of a universe of our sort (i.e., an expanding [and later contracting] universe with an early inflationary era and with matter that is evenly distributed on large scales). Given only their functional law of nature, there is a high probability that a universe of this sort begins to exist uncaused.” (Philo: A Journal of Philosophy, Volume 1, Issue 1, 1998, pp. 75-94.)

Until next time.

Defiance: No more Padre Damaso

Yesterdays (October 1) rally in front of the CBCP was a success!

Carlos Celdran in Jail.

RH advocate Carlos Celdran arrested for protesting inside cathedral. (From GMANews.TV - Friday, October 1)

(UPDATED 8:15 P.M.) Famed Manila tour guide and reproductive health advocate Carlos Celdran was detained by Manila police on Thursday for disrupting a mass at the Manila Cathedral, where he staged a protest action against the bishops' opposition to the reproductive health bill.

Dressed as Jose Rizal, Celdran stood in front of the Manila Cathedral altar during a mass, holding a sign bearing the words "Damaso." MARIZ UMALI

Dressed as Jose Rizal, Celdran stood in front of the Manila Cathedral altar during a mass with Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim and several bishops present, holding a sign bearing the words "Damaso" -- a reference to the villainous friar from the novel "Noli Me Tangere."

He screamed, "Stop getting involved in politics" before he was taken away by the police at around 4:30 p.m.

Manila Cathedral rector Msgr. Nestor Cerbo said that Celdran was guilty of "disruption of worship, which is a very sacred thing which should be given utmost respect."

At around 8:15 p.m. the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines filed charges against Celdran for violation of Article 133 of the Revised Penal Code, which prohibits "offending religious feelings."

The exact text of the article says that "the penalty of arresto mayor in its maximum period to prision correccional in its minimum period shall be imposed upon anyone who, in a place devoted to religious worship or during the celebration of any religious ceremony, shall perform acts notoriously offensive to the feelings of the faithful."

Aside from leading popular walking tours of Manila's historical spots, Celdran is also a vocal advocate of the Reproductive Health Bill. He has used his blog, Facebook account, and Twitter account to criticize the Catholic church for its stance against artificial contraceptives and sex education.

Police said it was Mayor Lim who ordered that Celdran be taken into police custody.

"Nandoon si Mayor Lim sa misa eh. Nilapitan siya ng pari. Ang nagmimisa doon, sundalo at mga police. Kinuha (si Celdran) ng mga pulis na nakikinig ng misa," said SPO2 Ernesto Andres, desk officer of the PCP Intramuros.

In a telephone interview, Celdran told GMANews.TV that the police were treating him well. "I think I got them on my side, because I told them the reason why I did this," he added.

"The fact the police are in semi-agreement with my cause, although they cannot do anything about it, shows how much people want the RH bill to be passed and how much the church should stop getting involved in politics and stop threatening the president," he added.

Pres. Aquino said today that he was unfazed by threats from the Catholic church to excommunicate him unless he changes his position that the state should respect the choices couples will make when planning their families.

At around 6:00 p.m., Celdran was transferred from Intramuros to the police community precinct in Ermita. "Doon sila maga-areglo," Andres said.

Celdran was placed in handcuffs during his transfer to the MPD Station 5 in Ermita. MARIZ UMALI. At around 7:00 p.m., GMA News reporter Mariz Umali tweeted that Carlos was placed behind bars while waiting for charges to be filed. She later said that Celdran would stay in jail overnight and possibly into the next day.

This photo taken around 7:00 p.m. shows Celdran, still in full Rizal costume, behind bars at the Manila Police District Station 5 in Ermita. MARIZ UMALI.

Last Tuesday, President Aquino announced that he would continue to support responsible parenthood and informed choice in family planning.

"Even during the [the presidential] campaign the president already stated his position on the matter. It's more of responsible parenthood. We believe that parents should be the one to decide on the size of their family, the manner and the method by which the planning should be done," said presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda.

In response, Catholic bishops threatened to stage protests if the reproductive health bill is passed into law. - YA/HS, GMANews.TV

More in Rizal behind bars: the arrest of Carlos Celdran