Smugness and Salvation

Regarding Michael's question to Fr. Araujo, I do not know whether belief is necessary if one hopes to "gain eternity," and I do not feel confident enough to tell my many nonbelieving friends that they have "wasted eternity."  I venture to say that I have experienced, and continue to experience, more than my fair share of anguish wrestling with the truth of Christianity and the prospect of immortality.  Nevertheless -- and this is where I might part company with Michael -- that anguish arises from uncertainty about whether the Christian story to which I have committed myself is actually true, not from uncertainty about whether its truth value shapes the nature of salvation.  If the story is true, then faith is unquestionably a path to salvation -- perhaps there are paths of salvation that do not proceed through faith (I hope there are), but the Christian story does not tell me that they exist, much less what they might be.  If the Christian story is not true, then the nonbeliever's guess is as good as mine on questions of salvation.  Perhaps the moral quality of my life provides a potential path toward salvation, regardless of Christianity's truth, but I'm not in any position to know that.