I’ve had rabbis tell me that people focus too much on religion and not enough on Hashem.
If you want to get close to Hashem, then it’s through Torah. However, to just follow the rules without Hashem is taking Hashem out of Judaism [and G-d forbid removing Hashem from Torah-observance].
People focused on being religious can end up spending too much time trying to out-chumra eachother and the whole kavannah and ohr of Torah is lost.