"Unconcerned, Jove looks on all"

The Aeneid

I am almost done with the Aeneid today. I confess, its been hard marches for the last few chapters. There is just way too much testosterone in this epic for my liking. If it isn't young men wanting to kill each other all the time, its gods mock-flogging the young men into killing each other. I swear there SHOULD have been a Roman god of war named Testosterone. Eventually Jove gets fed up with his various godletts, sitting around the battlefield like whiskey drunk spectators at a grand-pre wrestling match when a hockey game breaks out. He insists that he has so had it with the gods and their quarreling and whining that he is just going to let any one kill any one he wants for a few days. If Turnus wants to dismember Aeneas or Aeneas wants to cleave Turnus from pate to fart-hole, it won't matter to him.

Then thus to both replied th' imperial god,
Who shakes heav'n's axles with his awful nod.
(When he begins, the silent senate stand
With rev'rence, list'ning to the dread command:
The clouds dispel; the winds their breath restrain;
And the hush'd waves lie flatted on the main.)
"Celestials, your attentive ears incline!
Since," said the god, "the Trojans must not join
In wish'd alliance with the Latian line;
Since endless jarrings and immortal hate
Tend but to discompose our happy state;
The war henceforward be resign'd to fate:
Each to his proper fortune stand or fall;
Equal and unconcern'd I look on all.
Rutulians, Trojans, are the same to me;
And both shall draw the lots their fates decree.
Let these assault, if Fortune be their friend;
And, if she favors those, let those defend:
The Fates will find their way." The Thund'rer said,
And shook the sacred honors of his head,

Clearly Jove is not a Mennonite or Amish God. He certainly isn't Quaker. I remember some Mennonite friends of my parents when I was a kid that had a poster that said "A Modest Proposal for Peace: Let all the Christians of the World Decide that they will not Kill Each Other". Poor Jove who goddess squad is out to manipulate him to pick the Red Sax (Aeneid's guys) or Yankees (Turnus' guys) and he just decides for the sake of domestic tranquility to abdicate temporarily.

But it does seem that all religions have  some element of this - this notion that God or the gods just get lazy about keeping humans from killing each other.

Then, to his rage abandoning the rein,
With blood and slaughter'd bodies fills the plain.
What god can tell, what numbers can display,
The various labors of that fatal day;
What chiefs and champions fell on either side,
In combat slain, or by what deaths they died;
Whom Turnus, whom the Trojan hero kill'd;
Who shar'd the fame and fortune of the field!
Jove, could'st thou view, and not avert thy sight,
Two jarring nations join'd in cruel fight,

By Jove, I think Jove was up in his Skybox having a beer and watching the game. He certainly was not about to, Ghandi like, fast until the two sides buried their hatchets, While Aeneis is telling his son to fight hard and let others be lucky, Jove is coming back from the concession stand with a root beer and a bag of peanuts to watch his son, Aneas fight.

Question for Comment: Sometimes in religious history the exact same God can be portrayed as calling people to war (Deus Volt - God Will's It! the crusaders shouted) and other times portrayed as pleading with people NOT to go to war - under any circumstances. On this issue the sources appear to allow for a lot of theological elasticity. What do you think? Is God (or whatevr power you may believe in) ever for a war? Ever against? Ever indifferent?