I liked the way you asked the question, i just don't have an answer for you.
As for the lightning rod you have to look at it in the context of the times. Religion has changed severely since the lightning rod was invented, back then what we would call superstition was a big part of religion. Accidents befell people who deserved it for some reason, just like the king deserved his station in life due to god giving it to him, the common man like wise deserved his station in life. Devils and demons, angels and saints, spirits and ghosts, the world was full of ethereal beings bent on either our destruction or our salvation, the often used what we would call natural phenomena to cause change in the world.
The lightning rod was best first example of science triumphing over dogma. Dogma held that lightning was the wrath of god, people believed it, it was taught from the pulpit if not the bible, the idea that humans could thwart the wrath of god was at the time a revolutionary idea even if now we can clearly see lightning is a natural process that can be manipulated and in many ways now, then it was an active act of god, the easiest to see and experience, the one most often thundered from the pulpit was punishment for some wrong known or unknown buy the person what was affected. The lightning rod changed all that...
I know there are people who still think in terms of direct interaction by God, the old put the part of your body that is diseased on the TV while we pray and send us a check for $100 and you'll be cured sect is still alive and well but they no long hold the power of life and death of all of us.
Here is a good link to the problem
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/White/air/rod.html