What is happening in Gaza is not new.

Misguided religious beliefs and simmering, deeply entrenched racism each play a role in creating the conditions for genocide. In many cases, violence is perpetrated by one ethnic group upon another based solely on religious affiliation.

In Cambodia, organized religion was considered a threat to civil order, and the state-sanctioned anti-religious fervor of the communist Khmer Rouge certainly contributed to the genocide. Buddhist monks and moderate religious leaders were among the first targets of Pol Pot’s regime.

Guatemala would appear to be the only exception to this rule, because virtually the entire nation is Catholic. What is shocking, however, is how easy it was for supposedly religious people to commit such horrendous acts of violence against their fellow human beings – fellow Christians – in total opposition to the religious tenets they espouse.

It’s amazing how people with such deeply held spiritual beliefs can be turned into murderous genocidal monsters with very little encouragement.

Mass executions in Guatemala were even carried out inside of churches. Many Catholic sanctuaries were simply burned to the ground with the victims still inside.

At the time, the Reagan Administration certainly had no problem supporting Guatemala’s psychopathic leader, Col. Rios Montt – the man directly responsible for those crimes.

From the other side of the globe, genocide survivor Emira Ibrahimpasic speaks of her ‘idyllic’ life in the former Yugoslavia before the country was torn apart by civil war. She never thought about religion much until the war started in the early ’90s. Yugoslavia was recognized as being quite progressive for an Eastern Block nation at the time. Hungary and Yugoslavia were both seen as socialist models.

Marshall Tito managed to keep the simmering ethnic tensions at bay while he was alive, but the usual power vacuum engulfed the region as soon as he was out of the picture.

Up until the Bosnian conflict began, Emira celebrated both Christian and Muslim Holidays throughout her childhood and had never really considered the implications of such a thing until the war started. She was not a practicing Muslim because it didn’t matter very much in her family and it wasn’t encouraged by the socialist state. That all changed with the breakup of Yugoslavia and the start of the “ethnic cleansing.”

I can’t understand how people who lived together in relative harmony for so long can suddenly be whipped up into such hatred for each other, literally at the drop of a hat.

But there’s always some monumental war criminal like Rios Montt, Radovan Karadzic, Pol Pot and Omar Bashir ready to assert that God or whoever ordained them to commit these despicable acts against people who until recently were neighbors.

Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists: all of these belief systems allow for the slaughter and rape of their fellow human beings under certain conditions.

Fanatics have used religion as an effective weapon against humanity to keep us bickering and fighting amongst ourselves while the One Percent keeps us dumb and scared. The strategy has worked to perfection so far.

Religious scholars remind us that all of the major religious texts describe instances of horrendous genocide – in many cases carried out by God himself!

Any ideology which allows us to injure and kill each other – or any living creature – with impunity is inherently evil. The most horrendous crimes against humanity have been justified in the name of one stupid God or another. It all seems so pointless.

I understand the idea of de-humanizing your enemy in order to make it easier for you to kill them. But I still find it difficult to accept that so many people on this planet are capable of treating each other with such utter contempt and think they can just get away with it. Clearly, most folks need a few million more years to fully evolve.

In the case of Bosnia during the Bosnian conflict in 1992 and the supposed “rape camps,” it is beyond my understanding how people could be capable of carrying out such horrible, vicious crimes; especially against helpless women and children.

The worst perpetrators in the refugee camps certainly had families back home. How were they able to justify their crimes to their God, to their family, or to anyone else? This I find the most appalling aspect of the Bosnian genocide.

Rape is the most destructive and terrifying of all weapons, and it was used extensively to demoralize the population in Bosnia. It will continue to impact many generations to come.

The justifications given by the people who commit these heinous acts are truly demonic as well, especially considering that they appear to be so far removed from the lessons taught in the Bible, the Torah, or the Koran (so I am told).

I can honestly say I could never purposely harm – let alone kill – another living being. Not even in self-defense. I would take my own life before I would take another person’s.

And I did not need a religious upbringing to teach me about human compassion, or the difference between right and wrong, or that there are consequences to be paid for one’s actions.

But that’s just me.