Larc, I agree that most wars of the so-call "first world" powers are driven by economics. I also suspect that the economics of generosity could have a great deal of influence on other wars that have been mentioned.
Simon and Francois - I don't dispute the role that religion has played in wars in the past few centuries. When I say that religion gave a "jump start" motivation to science, technology and culture, I'm referring WAY back, to the very beginnings of what we refer to as "civilization" when and where they began in the "Fertile Cresent" from Egypt and Mesopotamia in the region of ancient Babylonia. These were the very beginnings, the root of modern civilization, particularly of the western world. Again, example would be the ziggurats and pyramids that tell us so much about those early civilizations. Was it not religion that motivated such awsome and mysterious constructions, without which we might know little or nothing about those early civilizations?
Hipikon: The towering structures that embodied extraordinary efforts to build and the artistry incorporated is how we learn much of what we know about the former cultures and know how scientifically advanced they were. How they achieved constructing some of these magnificant structures is baffling to modern scientists and archaeologists. We know from these that they had an advanced system for mathematics and other sciences, as well as writing and art. We are still learning from them. I tend to think these achievements were motivated by religious conviction, rather than political. And in the course, science and technology developed and has eventually come to dominate.