The problem is that first, one should be clear on the definition of religion.
Religion is usually characterized as "a personal or institutionalized system of religious beliefs, attitudes and practices" where "religious" is defined as "relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity"
The funny thing is that no human being CAN live without beliefs, attitudes or practices. Even atheism is a religion, namely the devotion to acknowledging that there is no God.
Even the Charta of Human Rights, even the 10 commandments, could be understood as a religion.
Ultimately, merely believing in God is a form of religion already.
The problem is that a re-definition of "being religious" as "having beliefs, practices or attitudes which are accepted without questioning and irrationally rejecting all forms of contrary evidence" - by the way: with this twist, I have just shown you the sociological definition of "fundamentalism".
I think what God hates is not religion, why did He give us the Bible as a guideline for our lives if He doesn't want us to live by it?
I think what God hates is fundamentalism, i.e. having our *own* set of beliefs, attitudes and practices, and becoming stubborn, as in "rejecting all other things, because they could never possibly come from God". This blocks the way for God's working, and this is one of the reasons why fundamentalism is so bad: man puts their *own* concepts above God!
btw: the Living Stream Ministry publishes a book entitled "Christ versus Religion".
It's usually the fundamentalists who hate religion and then redefine the word "religion" to imply a lot of negative things when in reality they're merely talking about themselves ;)
