Until the mid-1700's lightning was considered a punishment of sinners by God. When infidel Benjamin Franklin (Deist) invented the lightning rod he was assailed bitterly by Christians everywhere for robbing God of his judgment of sinners.
"Few of us today can fully realize the mental night that darkened the world in Franklin's time. Witchcraft was everywhere dominant. Every conceivable superstition held sway over the minds of the people. The most horrible crimes were committed in the name of religion. Cotton and Increase Mather were the intellects who ruled. And although the great souls who lived before Franklin had broken to some degree the tyrannical power of priest and king, and here and there the monsters of religion had been driven from the face of the earth, the winds, the rain, the storm, the sunshine and the seasons were still believed to be the caprices of God. And even though you were not burned at the stake for disbelieving the inspiration of the Bible, the wrath of God would yet fall upon you at Judgment Day. The cringing mass was awed into submission by warnings from above. Was not thunder the voice of God: and did not lightning reveal his anger and strike many dead?
"But in 1752, on the banks of the Schuylkill River, came one of the most significant triumphs for the liberation of man [and woman]. Benjamin Franklin, through his successful experiment with the kite, discovered the true nature of electricity, tore the mask from the face of Jehovah, and freed the heavens of a hideous monster.
"The thunderbolt was no longer the manifestation of God's anger, nor the lightning of his wrath. The mind of man [and woman] was emancipated from the fear of God.
"It is difficult to realize the complete revolution this discovery made upon the human race, or how far it was responsible for the triumphs of the nineteenth century. With it Franklin's fame, already world-wide, was intensified into universal approbation.
"The only dissenting voice was that of the clergy. They feared with their whole being, and rightly, too, the consequences of his achievement -- the lightning rod. They roundly termed it the heretical rod and refused to desecrate their churches with it, although as a consequence God particularly singled them out for destruction. Prayer, supplication and the ringing of bells were the methods they employed to forestall the lightning or to calm the rising flood.
"The clergy of that day, not unlike some to-day, could not reconcile their calling with the impious work of an arch infidel. There has always been hesitancy in accepting the achievements of the leaders and pioneers of progress, and always because it was in conflict with God's word."
"History is but a continuous narrative of the steps of progress, each one of which the Church has bitterly contested.
"Franklin's Heretical Rod has been a mighty instrument for the liberation and progress of man [and woman]. It has released us from the terror of the Unknown, and the debt the world owes this infidel is greater than it can pay."
From Positive Atheism
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