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I eventually found a great dentist. The first time I went to his office, it was extremely obvious that he was a Christian. Did that make me trust him more? Yes it sure did, but only because he was young. I would also trust an Orthodox Jewish dentist, but there aren't any here in Seattle that I can find. If I needed a lot of really expensive work, I would probably just go to a high end place in Mexico.

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I don’t understand how the religious inclinations of the dentist have anything to do with their trustworthiness in terms of their diagnoses and treatment recommendations.

Because many dentists are fraudulent. Morality is a big part of many religious doctrines. So they might be less likely to lie about unneeded procedures. But overall I agree that it's not in any way something you could rely on.

Note that I am not religious. The last religious thing I did was my bar mitzvah, which was like 35 years ago.

I felt like my dentist was morally upstanding.

I've used the same dentist in Bellevue for 4 years and he's never had me do anything besides my 2x a year cleanings. Never tried to sell me anything but tells me to floss. He's not noticeably Christian.

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