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Fair point. I would say that, theologically, such things would probably not be looked kindly upon when I was growing up but that doesn't mean it never happens.
Though, a lot of the "problems" I saw with rituals were people who would overweigh in-group markers (e.g. not drinking alcohol) while doing other bad shit moreso than something like bubbleporn.
I just meant religions with law codes like the Torah or Sharia.
That's actually the site of a bit of a debate. Just how much Judaism actually fits the hyper-transactional viewpoint* criticized by Christian scholars is one of the questions raised by the New Perspective
Sanders' work actually goes and looks at the sources in Paul's time (since Christians assume Paul must have been responding to some major deviation) and...it was more complicated. As I said, I'm not against there being a distinction, but there are strong incentives for polemics and contentious descriptions of other faiths that they themselves wouldn't necessarily have used ( e.g. your second approach)
* Though there is an argument that it applies more to Islam than Judaism
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