Show me someone who "worships" money the way other people "worship" God, and I'll show you the lunatic asylum he's already in:

"Oh, cash of my fathers, please bless me and my family! Please give me the strength to face death! And, while I'm at it, thanks for teaching me how to behave and for creating the universe too!"

I detect significant differences.

By the way, atheism has never been so "militant" as in the USSR and its spin-offs. But people could still pray inside their heads. If religion could survive Stalin and Mao, it can survive democratic secular humanists.

I'm not endorsing or condemning either religion or atheism, by the way. Just observing the facts.