As I read Christian's encounter with the Worldly Wiseman in Pilgrim's Progress, it again became clear that every false religion and cult is built on works.

There is no grace, and there is no forgiveness. You must follow a set of rigid rules or you are damned. But the only true path to salvation is through the sacrifice of someone else - the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.

But man always wants to design a system where we can be righteous. We are not and never will be.

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. -- Romans 3:10-12