When soldiers die, nations build memorials honoring the dead. The soldier's death and memorials erected in the name of the soldier's death function to PROVE THE EXISTENCE AND POWER OF THE NATION-STATE.

 Death PROVES THE REALITY of the nation-state; the sacred ideal.

Death in warfare is a methodology through which a nation or religious group validates its sacred ideal. The purpose is to submit to a sacred entity or idea and to die or be wounded in the name of this sacred idea or entity.

Warfare for the individual human being is a manifestation of CULTURAL SUBMISSION, which people avoid noticing by embracing the delusion that fighting in war is a manifestation of "male aggression." This delusion "keeps the old game going" (Gwyne Dyer).

Pathetic soldiers are duped into believing that by becoming "warriors" they demonstrate their "masculinity;" whereas in reality they manifest an inability to resist submitting to the nation-state and its leaders; profound passivity.

The field of "evolutionary psychology" has embraced this profound denial of reality, pretending that death in war is related to an adaptive "survival mechanism." The opposite is the true: Millions of men die in wars--and do not pass their genes along. 

 The objective of warfare is not survival of the individual organism (human being), but survival of an ABSTRACT IDEA, the nation-state or a religious idea worshipped by a particular group.

This impulse to PRESERVE THE SACRED IDEAL OR OBJECT is so powerful that human beings forfeit their individual lives in the name of the ideal (and don't pass their genes along).

HAMAS is a pitiful, destructive organization, but has more accurate understanding of the dynamics of cultural violence than do evolutionary psychologists.

"We love death the way you love life."

The purpose of sacrificial death is to confirm the reality of the sacred ideal. In the name of this ideal, human beings forfeit their individual lives (and do not pass their genes along).