The question “is religion needed for salvation” very funny. We obviously need religion because if we do not, God won’t send Jesus Christ down to earth to teach us about religion.
If we speak Biblically, religion was originally written in Greek in “threskeia” which means ceremonial observance and worshipping. Religion is a way to worship and serve God.
Salvation will save us. It will make us saved by God and if you do not worship God, you can never be saved by Him. We will be found worthy for salvation if we worship God because He will only save those who worship Him.
Malachi 3:7, KING JAMES VERSION says;
Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?
If we continue to follow the vices of life and turn away from worshipping God, we will never be saved. Those vices of the world are the ways of Satan and he can never in any way be close to saving us. The obly thing the devil can do is lead us astray and if we have chosen the devil, there may be no way for God to save us because that’s what we have chosen.
James 1:27, KING JAMES VERSION says;
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their afiliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
This is what religion teaches us and this is the way we can win the heart of God. These are the things that Jesus Christ has come to teach us on earth. And this is why we need religion so that all these teachings can save us and make us gain heaven.