Why does Les say religion is the most awful term?

Les explains that he has no time for the word religion and considers it the most awful term in the human language. He says religion prompts hatred, precipitates war, takes people down the dark path of legalism, and is always man's attempt to somehow please God. Christianity, however, is never a religion; it is God reaching down in mercy and grace to a lost human race, which religion never does. Les also notes that Paul uses religion in a bad light when he says he was saved out of the Jews' religion, because Paul was religious and, as a religious person, hated the very name of Jesus of Nazareth. In the context, the prosecuting attorney moves to the third segment of humanity, the religious person, primarily the religious Jew.