What is religion always an attempt to do according to Les?

Les teaches that religion is always man's attempt to somehow please God. He explains that he has no time for the word religion and considers it the most awful term in the human language. Religion prompts hatred, precipitates war, and takes people down the dark path of legalism. By contrast, Christianity is never a religion; it is God reaching down in mercy and grace to a lost human race. Religion never does that. Les notes that Paul uses the term in a bad light when he says he was saved out of the Jew's religion, because that is what he was—religious—yet he hated the very name of Jesus of Nazareth as a religious person. In the succeeding verses, Paul deals with the religious Jew, the primary religion he had to confront.