[AnonHP]

> Given a person, define “God” to be the mean opinion vector, taken over the members of this person’s tribe.

Most people on the planet would have an opinion that “having more money” is a good thing. Does this mean money is god for most people? Money has the ability to bring power, happiness, peace of mind. It also has the ability to bring suffering, anxiety, worry. All these are things that happen to people who believe in a god or multiple gods.

Instead of looking for shared opinions, it may be better to look at the human condition and the sheer uncertainty of bad events and good events. That things can be, and frequently are, out of our control is what makes people create gods as a support system.

[dagw]

Most people on the planet would have an opinion that “having more money” is a good thing.

With lots and lots of caveats. Other people having more money isn't necessarily a good thing, having too much money isn't necessarily a good thing, getting that money in a 'wrong' way isn't necessarily a good thing, having more money only to spend it 'wrong' isn't necessarily a good thing etc. etc. Once you encode and average out all those caveats you start getting close to a system of morality that can underpin a religion.

[krapp]

>Does this mean money is god for most people?

Yes.

>All these are things that happen to people who believe in a god or multiple gods.

And many religions consider the pursuit of wealth and material happiness beyond the basics of subsistence to be sinful. The Bible says one cannot serve both God and Mammon (capitalism). Buddhism might say money can only buy suffering.

>That things can be, and frequently are, out of our control is what makes people create gods as a support system.

You may be confusing cause and effect. "Money" is a response to uncertainty just as "Zeus" and "Poseidon" were millennia ago. The need to create order from chaos and give morality and purpose to the blind amorality of nature leads cultures to collectively develop these opinions. They just happen not to be primarily supernatural in the modern context.

The beliefs around "Money" are equivalent to those around gods - that the free market determines the true value of human life, that work ennobles the soul, that poverty is the result of moral fault and wealth of moral virtue. Money mediates the uncertainties of life in the same way people once believed rituals and prayers did. Money in many ways represents the animating spirit of modern civilization the way gods once represented the anthropomorphization of the natural world, in both its benevolence and cruelty. People trust the word of millionaires and billionaires implicitly, regardless of what they're talking about, as if they were prophets and possessed some divine insight into reality that mere mortals didn't.