The Bible is replete with internal contradictions and errors of history and science. That disqualifies it as a reliable source.
What you are being told by experienced critical thinkers is that they will not believe in gods (or anything else) without sufficient supporting evidence according to the academic rules for interpreting evidence. Personally, I don't ask believer for that supporting evidence. I know they don't have it. I might disagree with somebody who claims he does by pointing out how he has misinterpreted his evidence. I might disagree with what he calls evidence, often something not evident. I might disagree that his evidence makes gods more likely to exist, and note that nothing can be called evidence for or against an idea that doesn't make it more or less likely to be the case. And I like identifying and naming logical fallacies in these arguments. But as far as asking a believer to support his beliefs, I don't. I know that they are faith-based, not evidence-based.
The agenda of the critical thinker is to avoid holding false beliefs and to accumulate only demonstrably correct ones. Faith is not a path to truth. That's self-evidently true, since whatever can be believed by faith, so can its polar opposite. This is a method that can't tell a correct idea from an incorrect one, and which is orders of magnitude more likely to be faith in a wrong idea that a correct one, since the former far outnumbers the latter.
I disagree that it is inappropriate to withhold belief absent sufficient supporting evidence for that belief. The claim that gods are inherently transcendent or ineffable doesn't make it so or make gods real. What you are describing is something that is undetectable not just contingently while awaiting for the right detector to be placed in the right place, but necessarily undetectable, which is also the description of every nonexistent thing. Why give this one unevidenced idea any more credence than any of the others like succubi, ghosts, Santa, werewolves, and leprechauns? Would it matter to you if I called them transcendent? I understand that believers are frequently offended by such comparisons. If so, I apologize. Feel free to substitute your own example of something you also cannot detect.
Critical thinking is a defense against indoctrination and false belief.
And what do you say to someone who finds those teachings less than impeccable? The wife and I were discussing this just last night with the neighbors over wine. One said that surely I must find much of the moral advice in the Bible sound, and I agreed, but noted that there were several points of departure between what I consider moral and what scripture teaches, much of which I consider harmful. It's the rational ethics of humanism that has advanced the religions morally. To the extent that it has learned, which is incomplete, humanism taught Christianity that democracy freedom of and from religions is preferable to theocracy, that homosexuals and atheists are not abominations, that people aren't property, and that women are the equal of men.
That's an interesting comment. So, if you see an error, you use your common sense and discrimination to call it that and reject it? Then what? Go on trusting the source anyway? If that's correct, how is that not the definition of blind faith belief in the absence of sufficient supporting evidence or in the presence of falsifying evidence? I do the opposite when I see an error. It's why I'm not a Christian any longer.
So has the propaganda. Look at the word and its root. People have been propagating this religion and its scriptures all of that time, sometimes at the point of a crusader's or conquistadore's sword, sometimes with missionaries, sometimes in Sunday schools, sometimes by putting Bibles in hotel rooms, and even sometimes advertising during the Super Bowl.
Super Bowl ads will tout Jesus 'gets us' to the masses - ABC News (go.com)
