Yuyutsu
<<<<<Though the process cannot truly be adequately described, it can be better described as subtraction rather than addition and it is more accurate to say that they end up WITHOUT something(s) - without their impurities>>>>>>

OK, so maybe we've come full circle and we could describe your belief as belief in nothing, and your religion as no religion?

<<<<<<False notions about yourself can and should be eliminated, but your true self is not a thing and cannot be eliminated - you are God, the Absolute.>>>>>>

No, that's an assertion without proof.

Indeed, there's considerable reason to believe it's untue. It's well established we are primates, hominins from the species homo sapien sapiens. We've lived 250,000 years as a species and contemporaneuously with several other human (hominid) species such as Denisovans, Neanderthals, Flores Man and others. We even interbred with them.

There is no consensus about a "true self" our an innate "human nature". Some experts doubt the concept of human nature or essential nature.

All of the above, including your claims, are information. There are informed by evidence which contains the information pertaining to them. No thing, or nothing escapes this concept. Every claim you make about the world is susceptible to evidence.

Dear Razor,

«OK, so maybe we've come full circle and we could describe your belief as belief in nothing, and your religion as no religion?»

Beliefs are beliefs and religion is religion - they are two different things.

If we have come a full circle, then the topic was the census, which has no such question as "what do you believe in?".

To judge my religion as "no religion" is gravely severe. Some fundamentalist Muslims and Christians might claim so, e.g. that I will be damned in hell for eternity without any recourse to God, but you are one of those I least expected to hear such harsh words from. I never made such horrible judgement about your own religion.

«No, that's an assertion without proof»

This is a grand statement (Mahavakya), not an assertion.
The absence of a proof does not imply the incorrectness of a statement.

«It's well established we are primates»

It is merely well established that our bodies are primate-bodies.

«Some experts doubt the concept of human nature or essential nature»

I too disagree with the concept of "human nature".
As for "essential nature", it is merely an attempt to point at the direction, going where language and the mind cannot follow. This direction can also be described as: "drop everything that is unessential. What is left?".

«No thing, or nothing escapes this concept»

Okay, but I was not discussing any thing.

«Every claim you make about the world is susceptible to evidence.»

True, but in this specific instance I was not making any claim about the world.

<<<<True, but in this specific instance I was not making any claim about the world.>>>>

Ah, It occured to me after I posted you would respond in this way.

Replace with:

Every claim you make is susceptible to evidence.

<<<<<This is a grand statement (Mahavakya), not an assertion.>>>>

It's a assertion without proof, no matter how grand or who made it.

<<<<The absence of a proof does not imply the incorrectness of a statement.>>>>

Agree. But, what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

<<<<To judge my religion as "no religion" is gravely severe. I never made such horrible judgement about your own religion.>>>>

You just did.

<<<Okay, but I was not discussing any thing.>>>>
in response to :"nothing escapes this concept"

OK. Here we are at your deliberate impasse, which you appear to think allows you to claim divine knowledge or otherworldly nothingness realms or whatever it is you are claiming, san evidence.

Please describe what escapes this concept.

If you cannot describe what escapes this concept your religion is invalid.

If you intend to claim that language limits you then your religion (which relies on langauage to communicate its beliefs and practices) must be similarly limited in explaining what it claims to understand. It is thereby invalid, and an unreliable communicator of divine knowledge.

What you are offering are excuses to believe in things that cannot be known. Its the Kierkegaards paradox. http://public.wsu.edu/~kimander/briellepap.htm

Dear Razor,

«You just did [judge your religion as "no religion"]»

Heaven forbid!

I do not know you personally and I do not entertain the slightest thought or feeling as if your religion is deficient merely because you cannot name it. Who am I to tell - you could even possibly be more religious than me.

«Every claim you make is susceptible to evidence»

So here is a semantic question: if you say something that has nothing to do with the world, is it still a "claim"?

I don't know the answer, so here is what dictionaries say for 'claim' (this doesn't necessarily mean that they can be trusted):
"an assertion that something is true"
"an assertion of something as a fact"
"a statement saying that something happened a certain way or will happen a certain way"

They all boil down to things, thus by all those dictionaries, a claim needs to be about the world.

«Agree. But, what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.»

Sure, but why would you want to do that?

(completely besides, if you really wanted, then you could dismiss any assertion even WITH evidence)

«then your religion (...) must be similarly limited in explaining what it claims to understand»

I humbly accept, but who said that the purpose of religion is to explain anything?

You may receive inspiring pointers, lots of advice, guidelines, encouragement, good company and great techniques, but ultimately you must travel the journey yourself.

«It is thereby invalid, and an unreliable communicator of divine knowledge»

Divine knowledge cannot be communicated, but why should this render my religion invalid?

«What you are offering are excuses to believe in things that cannot be known»

Things? Like what?

Kierkegaards paradox: "Climacus’ absolute paradox is that man is absolutely different than God"

Thus both must be objects and all sorts of logical difficulties arise. Contrary to that, Advaita Vedanta states that You and God are absolutely the same.

//Contrary to that, Advaita Vedanta states that You and God are absolutely the same.//

No we're not. God is made from spaghetti and he can fly under his own power, neither of which apply to me.

Dear Yuyutsu,

You mention Advaita Vedanta and the “sameness” of Atman and Brahman. [In my layman’s opinion, for Christians this corresponds to God’s Grace in the Self, - “God within” if you like - and God without, the former being a projection of the latter (rather than the same as in Advaita Vedanta)].

The Hindu physicist Varadaraja V. Raman (http://broom02.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Varadaraja%20V.%20Raman&item_type=topic) writes in a way more comprehensible to the Western man who prefers to think in scientific categories (e.g. http://www.metanexus.net/essay/descriptive-view-religion) even when explaining Hindu philosopy.

Do you know him and about his relation to the Advaita version of Vedanta? From what I read I do not remember him mentioning this philosophical school explicitly.