then there's his motivation, which we are led to believe is that he doesn't believe Gods can be all good because of his childhood experiences....so he both actively antagonizes this God, allows Batman to steal the only thing he knows the God is weaker against, and then creates a more powerful God himself that would've probably destroyed the entire human race if not for the people he was trying to kill. This is a far cry from a cold and calculating Luthor that's...well, everywhere.

Without Superman, Zod would've destroyed the planet, the world already knows this, and then we even get a (extremely sad, as if Snyder was being held at gunpoint during the directing of these scenes) montage of Superman almost on the verge of crying while going to help other people. his isn't a Watchmen situation where Dr. Manhattan was a literal and unique God either, this DC universe has had Batman being a vigilante for 20 years, Wonder Woman having participated in WW1, Aquaman being in the ocean for who knows how long, plus Flash and Cyborg going to start their career. It's a dumb debate to be having because the world ALREADY KNOWS that without superheroes they are nothing. But even then it's useless to think the movie actually pushes the point beyond a montage of tv shows saying Philosophy 101 quotes at the vievew. When the actual battle comes, Batman almost kills Superman (which I do find ridiculous, even if I saw the MoS fight as senseless violence, what Batman managed to see at Ground Zero was Superman actively fighting, and getting his ass kicked by, Zod, but I digress), then they find out DC writers in the 50s made a funny easter egg with their momma's names, then cue final CGI-fest battle. The actual superheroes never talk about their clashing ideologies (which in the Snyderverse aren't really clashing, Superman will murder whoever he wants and only seems to be doing the superheroing because otherwise Lois won't put out, while Batman also just murders whoever he wants), or justify anything or what they do to themselves or the audience. The closest we get to an introspective moment is when Pa Kent comes in to speak to the audience how he stupidly destroyed a neightboor's farm, but even then the analogy doesn't really work because Superman HASN'T DONE ANYTHING LIKE THIS THE ENTIRE MOVIE. He was framed by Luthor (how...? I don't know. Even entertaining the absurd idea that people actually believed Superman had to use guns to take someone down, they were so easily trackable to LexCorp that even Lois Lane did it, and then the television clearly identifies the bomber as the guy in the wheelchair...and Superman gets blamed because he made him angry, I guess?). Maybe it was something that happened offscreen, who knows, because for sharing half the title, Clark Kent appears like 4 times in the movie and Superman does even less than him. You can blame that on Zack "superheroes look silly if they speak more than 5 lines in costume" Snyder.