I have been an Orthodox Christian for some 15 years, but have come to seriously doubt the veracity of Christianity. I would now consider myself an agnostic (I will probably search more, but I see at present good arguments both for and against the existence of God) I have stopped practicing Orthodoxy and would like to leave the Church. But I am afraid I may be wrong, as while there are seemingly strong reasons to believe Christianity is flawed, I see other seemingly strong reasons in favor of it. I was wondering if you non-Christians could give me your thoughts on the following supposed supernatural experiences. Orthodox literature is packed with reports of miracles, both recent and past. Time would fail me if I listed all the examples of miracles credited to this or that saint, icon, relic, etc. Here are a number of these:
-Our Lady of Zeitoun - a repeated Marian vision from a Coptic church in 1968-1970. It seems much more convincing than Catholic reports of Marian visions, having been reportedly seen by scores of people over and over again, and there having been miraculous healings, a fragrant smell, etc. at the time. Here, if you have not heard about this, is a short documentary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVXEh4Jzs2s There exist photographs and maybe even films documenting this. Also in Asiout.
http://st-takla.org/Multimedia/07-Vi...a2-Mariam.html Could some of these very convincing instance be a forgery?
-Here is a website purporting to show Orthodox miracles. There are crosses in the sky above a church, supposed images of angels during church services, a face of the Lord in the bottom of a baptismal font, etc. More tangibly, a tree in a Russian monastery
with the perfect shape of a cross.
http://rus-sky.com/miracles/indexen.htm . These could admittedly be somehow forged, but why would someone forge miracles? Who would have an interest in doing this in the Orthodox Church?
-Or the many reports one hears of healings and exorcisms. Many people claim to have been healed after intense prayer to a saint (for example, on one website, there is a recent story about St. Marina appearing as a doctor in a Texas hospital after prayers to her for the Orthodox boy in question, and assisting in the operation
http://nepsis.blogspot.com/2006/07/s...s-to-work.html - and this is just one of many such stories. And as, according to the story, St. Marina signed in at the hospital as "Marina from Andros", maybe this miracle could easily be verified by going to the hospital and checking. Or on this page
http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache...ct=clnk& cd=9 there is a story "By Her Prayers..." by an Elizabeth Hawkins - the woman claims she was not only healed, but felt strong repentance after being anointed with holy oil , saw light coming out of the icon of St. Elizabeth and had a vision of St. Elizabeth praying by her bedside. It's quite a deep story, why would someone make this up? It seems to have too many elements to be just coincidence or fantasy.
-Or reports of "near-death experiences". A classic story from the church is that of the Carthaginian settler Taxiotis, who was bitten by a snake, died, was revived six hours later, and recounted how he had been thrown into hell for his recent adultery with his tenantīs wife. That is a very old story, but there are more modern ones, in Fr. Seraphim Roseīs book The Soul After Death for example
-Monasteries seem to be rife with the paranormal. Some people say that there are spiritual fathers to whom ordinary faithful go up to for advice and before they even open their mouths, the father tells them what their main sins or their troubles are. Visions, prophecy etc are reported as massively happening among monks. They say that among monks it is common to see or even talk to demons. A google search of, for example, Silouan the Athonite, would provide some examples. Why would monks, who spend their lives in obedience, poverty, prayer and fasting make these things up? Or is there something I don't know?
-Another interesting example is to be found in the book Kidnapped for my Faith by Ken Levitt (c. 1980). He tells of how he was a Jew who felt there might be something to Christianity. He prayed to God that if He is the Christian God, He send him signs in the form of songs he had not heard in a long time coming on on the radio. He claims that the signs appeared as he had asked for them (and that they stopped coming when he promised God he would ask for no more but did so anyway). His parents later had him kidnapped by "deprogrammers", from whom Levitt escaped after, he claims, he prayed to God fro a dime (so he could call the police after his escape), promptly getting his prayer answered when someone found one on the ground and gave it to him. (I have tried this too and it didn't work. But maybe God revealed Himself to Levitt because Levitt was serious about his commitment to Christianity, whereas I have been minimalist in my approach to it).
-Some people report (I can think of several people saying this in my presence) that they have a great (euphoric?) feeling after taking Holy Communion, and that more frequent communicating has strengthened him by making them more willing to do the will of God.
-when I was 10-11, my mother and I played baseball with people from her company. Some more athletic people who did not like a small woman and boy being on the team, as well as people who, as we found out, would apparently try to hit the ball toward me when I was in the field so there would be less of a chance of me catching it. Once I was out in the field, and the one time when I recall catching the ball, I recall it as taking me quite by surprise. My mother and at least one colleague reported that the ball had gone up and then fallen back into my glove, as if some higher force was guiding it in order to protect me from being hit by a possibly deliberately aimed ball.
-At the time I started believing, my grandmother told me that when the Communists came to Yugoslavia, he started to show off as if he were a big atheist in order to impress the authorities (for example, on Easter morning, he would start hammering away in his workshop so everyone could hear him working). Then, she said, three times in his life he was seriously in danger/injured, each time
on the same date, which may have been a saintīs day that had some significance to the family. He apparently got the message and repented.
-A former family friend, from the former Yugoslavia, had a mother whom he respected and a stepfather whom he said was a crook. He tells how at the moment his mother died, he was away driving, and at that time he found himself among pigsties or some other dirty place, but suddenly he smelled some wonderful odor. On the other hand, when his stepfather died, he was in the funeral procession, and at one point, he saw an enormous snake. As if there had been signs confirming how good his mother was and how evil his stepfather was.
-My (hitherto) pastor told me that he had been clearly led to the church by God. He had set out to be baptize (in Serbia), but had not wanted to be baptized by a local priest. He was set on being baptized by some "great spiritual father" in a monastery. He said that when he started on his trip to the monastery, he travelled through Serbia to get there, but due to the conditions of the time couldn't take a direct route. However, the normally difficult trip, he says, was made easy by a series of events which were such coincidences that, he says, it is impossible that it was all chance (eg. he was offered a ride at the right time, then just happened to catch a perfect train, etc. - several steps on a normally difficult journey). He ended up having a wonderful time at the monastery and meeting one or more well- known spiritual fathers.
-His wife had I think two miscarriages. Then they got a blessing from a monastery, including a blue blessed belt or scarf, or something like that. (I am not sure but maybe they also got the Chilandar grapes of St. Simeon mentioned above) Soon after, his wife became pregnant, and their daughter, while having dark hair like their parents, has blue eyes similar to the girdle, though no one in their family had such eyes.
-He says that during fasts, he has no appetite for meat (I have had an appetite for meat during any fast, but he is far more pious than me).
-He told me a story of a not particularly religious woman who visited a monastery, and who pulled a hair from the beard of the incorrupt relics of a saint as a souvenir. On her return to wherever she was from, she began suffering from rampant insomnia. She associated it with her tampering with the relics without permission, and eventually got on a plane, and returned the hairs to the monastery. Her insomina supposedly then stopped.
I could go on and on like this. There are tons of reports of church-related paranormal events around. I fail to see how it could have an interest, financial or otherwise, in making up all this. What do you think?
Non-Christians, how would you interpret these things? 
Many are probably true, but I think totally irrelevant to you. They are trying to illicit awe in you to get you to follow their beliefs. I hear fear that something bad might happen if you disagree with them. Sometimes it takes getting away from set beliefs to see what is true for ourselves. Other times we need to make a stand and shake our fist at authority :
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