Yes I totally see what you mean about the quantity/quality of actions. It would be interesting to see how Jews responded if the question about becoming more/less religious was made more concrete, adding detail about what they might mean by an increase or decrease. I’m fairly sure that different people will respond in vastly different ways depending on their own interpretation. But again, that’s just the scientist in me wanting things nailed down as concretely as possible!

It could be my Jewish bias, but wouldn’t a Christian also say: “I go to church every sunday, but I used to go tuesdays as well, so I guess I’m less religious”? I mean, even for them that could be a measure. But you’re right, if belief is the key…

Very interesting. This is definitely my bias: I like the arguably objective measure inherent in Judaism- but then you could argue doing more within a given commandment is not necessarily being more religious, either. I could be more strict and fool myself into thinking I’m more religious (and maybe, personally speaking, that was very true a few years ago), but I think there could be a case for quantity over “quality”, as quantity affects your habit and therefore your character traits. Not to be misunderstood regarding quality – as I once said, there’s a way to give flowers, and there’s a way not to give flowers.

My suspicion is it might be easier to pretend to be just as religious as you were before for religions other than Judaism. Given the main thing Christianity for example requires is faith rather than action, you can easily trick yourself into thinking nothing’s changed when you look at your everyday life. Observant Judaism however requires concrete action so there’s no fooling yourself that you’ve stopped doing something.

I can’t speak for the other religions being discussed though, so this is pure conjecture.