Guest, I think if you look into supposed religiously-based conflicts you will find that religion was simply the propaganda tool used to whip up the followers...but what lay behind it was economic powerplays of various sorts. And that's the influence of money. The USA funded the Taliban in order to fight the Soviets. The USA then wanted to build a pipeline from the Caspian through Afghanistan, but the Taliban did not agree to that. The USA subsequently found a very handy excuse to invade and bring down the Taliban. The key to the whole thing: oil revenues.

Similar economic considerations lie behind virtually all conflicts. It comes down to a battle over turf, cash, and material goods...with religion used as the rallying cry.

The old religious wars in Europe between Protestants and Catholics were basically over turf, cash, political power, and material wealth as well, when it came right down to it.

The Spanish who rampaged into Central and South America were ostensibly doing it to spread the Word of God...but you know what they were really after? Gold and other material things, and an empire. Their religious fanaticism was just part of a larger and uglier lust for power, wealth, and control.

Anyway, my basic point was that you can tell a person's religion by what influences him most strongly...and enough money will induce most people to do some really extraordinary things that they would not do otherwise, so I say that their true God is money, whether they are willing to admit it or not.