Why are so many deities about war and so few about peace?

[Jay GW]

Is a religion emphasizing deities and myths of war more likely to succeed than ones stressing peace?

I noticed after looking through http://www.godchecker.com/

an encyclopedia of gods, that

A search of deities/myths of war: 226
A search of deities/myths of peace: 49

There are far more gods of war than of peace.

Some pantheons are more one sided than others

The Aztec pantheon
14 related to war
0 related to peace

The Celtic pantheon
19 related to war
0 related to peace

Japanese pantheon
9 related to war
0 related to peace

Native American pantheon
18 related to war
1 related to peace

Norse pantheon
18 related to war
2 related to peace


and so on

[Yosei]

Quite sad. I guess gods can be as violent as their earthly subjects.

[Ojuice5001]

Joseph Campbell has noticed the same thing you have. His answer is that war and killing are, in fact, a necessity for life. All human societies need to kill enemies like foreign soldiers or poisonous snakes-- just as every animal (including us, of course) can only eat if it kills weaker life-forms (whether that weaker life-form is a chicken or an ear of corn).

War and other forms of killing always have the potential to be a source of power, while peace and mercy are only sometimes useful for gaining power. And as Nietzsche has argued, life forms tend to do whatever their will to power leads them to do. Since aggression and killing are so useful, there have been many animals, many humans, and many gods whose lives were determined by the efforts to develop a better ability to fight.

It's true that sometimes the advantages of peace are so great that they outweigh those of war. And then we have mythologies of peace; people like the Jains who can afford the luxury of living a completely pacifist lifestyle. But given the nature of the world, there will always be fewer pacifist monks than there are fighting men. And the same kind of reasons explain why there are fewer gods of peace than there gods of war

[premjan]

In Hinduism, the only God of war I can think of is Karttikeya. The gods are the way they are - some are pacific and some are more temperamental but they don't have fixed exoteric roles for the most part. You could say Kali and Durga (the female deities) are the only ones who are explicitly depicted as violent, but maybe for women that is a bit more excusable as in real life they are probably more often at the receiving end.

[Laurentius]

Indeed, the pantheon reflects a way of life.
Tell me who your gods are and I'll tell you who you are.

[Hydra009]

Oh yeah, it's quite a list.

list of war deities

[Mizled]

Is a religion emphasizing deities and myths of war more likely to succeed than ones stressing peace?
If the supporters of that religion emulate and worship their gods then they'd be more willing to fight or go to war helping their society or tribe stay alive against other factions. Also it has an affect on theirs and their enemies psyche if they think a god of war has their back they'll fight better and likewise their enemies won't be as confident.

[notasheep]

War gods kick peace gods' asses.

[Ponzi]

Maybe it's because war is a risky activity that a society has to directly pursue, while peace is merely not performing that activity?

[Laurentius]

Maybe it's because war is a risky activity that a society has to directly pursue, while peace is merely not performing that activity?

No. It's rather because peace is preserved through war means.

[Karalora]

"Peace," as contrasted to war, is the absence of war. It's a lot more difficult to symbolize the absence of something than the thing itself. The Greek god of peace, so to speak, is Ares leaving you alone.

Also, what makes a deity a "war god?" Must the god be characterized as enjoying war and encouraging it among mortals, or must he/she merely be a common target of worship by mortal warriors and soldiers? A great many pagan deities could fill the role of a warrior if need be, but it wasn't their primary function.

[premjan]

There was a Greek Goddess of Peace - Eirine (http://www.waltm.net/eirene.htm).

[Karalora]

D'oh! ^ I knew that. Really. Hopefully, my temporary brain fart doesn't obscure my point.

[general_koffi]

Human civilization is shaped by conflict.

[Laurentius]

Human civilization is shaped by adaptation (Man makes a highly adaptable species), but there aren't striking gods of adjustment, as there are of war.

[Ojuice5001]

Human civilization is shaped by adaptation (Man makes a highly adaptable species), but there aren't striking gods of adjustment, as there are of war.

I say this is because gods have an attitude that adjusting to new circumstances is a necessary evil, rather than something they like. One class of humans who strongly associates with the gods, the priesthood, tends to have a similar attitude. And in this respect the average priest resembles the gods more than the average person does.

The gods are quite capable of adapting to new circumstances if they have to, but that doesn't mean that they like it. A god like Yahweh is able to change with the times without ever forgetting that he much prefers the biblical and medieval ages to the way things are in modern times. Since gods don't enjoy adjusting to new circumstances, most of them wouldn't want to be the god of adjustment, and therefore it doesn't happen very often.

This analysis implies that the gods don't have an especially strong preference for war rather than peace, while they do have a strong preference for the status quo rather than some kind of new world order. And of course, this is conclusion is very much in line with the way the gods have usually revealed themselves and governed this world.

[IvanJames]

I know that I'd be a hell of a lot more likely to pray if I were just about to go to war! (In a primitive society, that is) I mean, if you're going into danger, you're a lot more likely to want supernatural protection, or at least a promise of an afterlife. How else are you going to convince the young men of the village to endanger themselves?

[Laurentius]

Then why don't women have their peace goddess (or the like)? There was a period of matriarchate when such deity should have been revered, don't you think?