8Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
This seems, to me, to say "Never mind about logic or reality; this is a mystery of faith." In some ways I'm reminded of it by the current controversy over Biblical literalists taking the word of the Bible over provable science in the question of evolution. Is there even a possible reconciliation between these two points of view? I'm not confident there is.

As far as the miracles are concerned. The accounts were written by eyewitnesses of actual happenings...these are not allegorical stories for our enlightenment. They were there to show the power of God at work in this world.
As I understand it, Gnostic Christians don't in fact believe in the miracles--up to and including that of the physical resurrection of Jesus--as factual events. They look at them in much the same way Wine describes them, as parables and lessons describing deeper philosophical truths. It's how I think about the stories in the Bible--when I do think about them.

I don't think all religions are connected, but I do think the religious impulse in humans is well-nigh universal.

Gene

"The value of an idea has nothing to do with the honesty of the man expressing it."
--Oscar Wilde