So I finished it, though I ended up studying it more than simply reading as one has a tendency to do. It was a great book, and I think one of the parts that’s going to stick with me is where he is paraphrasing the Socrates-farmer debate in Aristophanes’ play:
If there’s no [god], what makes it rain?
If [god] could make it rain, there would or could be rain from cloudless skies. Since this does not happen, it might be wiser to conclude that the clouds are the cause of the rainfall.
Where do lightnings come from, to punish liars and other wrongdoers?
The lightning does not seem to discriminate between the just and the unjust. Indeed, it has often been noticed to strike the temples of [god] himself.
I had a desire to go through the Dialogues in high school, but then I saw how thick the book was, and figured I might as well do something else. The above exchange though, is just absolutely brilliant.