I've thought that things should be the opposite, atheists should appreciate the greed and self interest in us and that religiously greed has been something they are against. One of the main tenets of of the major religions is that you make the sacrifices today so that ever last heaven at the end and greed has been one of those items looked upon for centuries.
I disagree. Theism (especially monotheism) is purely about selfishness. Monotheistic morality is rooted in whatever aligns with the selfish will of a creator God. It's "good" or "bad", depending on what he wants. Since what he wants is entirely invented by the believer and/or whatever other person they let decide for them, then their morality is entirely about promoting self interest. That doesn't always equal greed about money, because many people don't value money as much as other things. For a devout theists, their ideology is more important than money, so the selfish motives will be in service of promoting that ideology. For example, the selfishness can lead to harming others to promote the idea that homosexuality is wrong, regardless of whether the person makes a financial gain from doing so.
With atheism, there is no God that one can use as a proxy to equate selfish motives with morality. Instead, the only meaningful sense of morality hinges upon doing harm to others. And atheism should enhance one's innate sense of empathy and widen the circle of people that evoke it, because their is no God's will taking precedence and narrowing the circle based on who serves his will.
There may be sociopaths who lack basic empathy and thus actually act more moral and caring under the fear of God's authority. And theism is likely to increase one's willingness to make extreme sacrifice of one's wealth, time, and even life to "serve God". That can eit er mean anything from being a suicide bomber to giving all one's wealth to either fight against gays or against hunger. So, it cuts both ways and is a wash.
