A shared fiction, yes. Money more or less as we know it seems to have first arisen with agriculture. (And has existed side-by-side with religion since.) Grain rots, what can you "store" value in?

I'm not saying money didn't exist before religion. I'm saying that money took the place of religion as the central organizer of society and moral understanding. Granted, my theory is vibes based

The history doesn't really line up to support it. Though there has, of course, been a transition in the "West" from power centralization through the church to industry from the 1600s- on. (Even before that, some of that power was still codified through money. Tithing, etc).

okay

Further, some of the first coins were temple tokens. And many Greek coins depicted Zeus.