(January 30, 2015 at 2:28 pm)SteveII Wrote: That would be incorrect. Belief and acceptance of grace is the only requirement to be saved. Now practically speaking, if you believe that Jesus was who he claimed to be and accepted the grace offered, then you would want to strive to follow his other precepts.
But since the evidence for any of that is vastly insufficient for the claims being made, there is no rationally justifiable reason to do so.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.