There are two ways to overcome a fear of death. The first way is acceptance of immortality. Whether the immortality is actual or suspected is irrelevant; it is not death we want to overcome, but the fear of it. Most often, acceptance of immortally is a result of naiveté or religious faith.

The second way is acceptance of ignorance. If we accept that we know not, if we are calm and comfortable in that rickety wagon careening over the cliff, we have overcome; it’s not truly death from which we cower, it is the possible implications and consequences of death. Of course, if our ignorance makes us panic, if we do not accept that we may not know, we’re fucked.

It comes down to: either you are certain you know what will happen, or you are ready to rock even though you don’t have a clue. These are the two types of people you want to send to war.

More than a few wars are blamed on religion. Bill Maher undoubtedly thinks that most of history’s wars are a result of religion, while he thinks the current wars are the result of a different kind of greed. We all know that Mel Gibson blamed the Jews for all the wars in the world. If you need a third person to say it, drive out to any bar, saloon or pub, 45 minutes outside of any major city and ask the first drunk you meet, "Who attacked America on September 11, 2001?" and, "Why did they do it?"

But the suggestion that religion causes war is fallacious. Human nature causes war; religion is one of the tools that makes war executable. The other tools are ignorance (already mentioned in a different form) passive coercion (in the form of trickery or argument), and active coercion (in the form of threats, a draft, and so on). If you’re going to send people to war, you don’t want to use coercion to get them there. Your best bet is to send the religious and the young.

In his award-winning book "Ender’s Game", Orson Scott Card tells of boy-genius Ender Wiggin, who is sent to war against an alien species in order to save humanity. It was his youth as much as his genius that made Ender the only candidate for the task. Years later, in an interview, Card explained his character choice: We send children to war, he said, not because they are the strongest and the best of our citizens, but because they believe themselves immortal.

The same is true for 18 and 19-year-old soldiers around the world today. Yet, acceptance of immortality does not just come with age – it comes with religion as well. A recent Vanity Fair article profiled a 37-year-old Texas Army National Guardsman whom they called "Russ Crane." One of the more poignant parts of the article was the recollection of a firefight in Afghanistan.

Amidst chaos, Crane saw a shepherd. He stood in the center of the firefight. As the man stretched his arms out, his flock came around his body and bowed their heads. Bullets passed by and the man and his sheep were calm. Crane balanced his rifle on a Humvee. Eight hundred and six meters away, a Pashtun man rose from behind a rock. A silent pink cloud of dust burst from the man’s chest as the bullet entered. At the end, no Americans were injured. The shepherd touched his sheep; they arose and followed him around the bend. Crane knew that the shepherd was a messenger from God, the reason his shot, incredible from over a half mile, was true.