no, not religion, mechanical activation of our reward system for a given amount of effort. to be rewarding implies you find some good into it, so you will rinse and repeat, whatever it is. some people likes sado maschism and explore this activity. others ask themselves about stars. you hardly get to choose about your tastes, you can only explore them as long as your reward system works. different people, different ability to explore the same topic, or, be attracted to it to begin with.

can not be religion, even though you could use that lens; it is too much troubles, people can not find agreements based on beliefs. gotta be science oriented, debatable under human civilized behaviour.

It sure takes a lot of faith to believe that the consumer will be the economic savior, in response to typically invoking prayer based on supernatural misbeliefs or in some cases pure superstition.

When actual miracles are needed instead :\

Commodity Fetishism? Rei-fication? Marx and Engels wrote about both, in what we might call the dawn of consumerism.

I think validation through possessions is definitely a thing.

Veblen goods run counter to this: consumers love fakes!