IS OUR BELIEVING IN JESUS A WEAKENED CRITERIA FOR SALVATION?

I have been wondering about something that goes totally against the grain of what I/we have said for as long as we have been serious students of His Word.

I know the answer before I reveal my question.  Yet, I can't quit wondering if there is an element I just can't get because of a misfire in my programming of church answers, etc.

Is our believing in Jesus a weakened criteria for salvation?  The mere question causes me pause.  Should I delete the this post?  I'm tempted.  But there's a place in scripture that bugs me, so I put myself before you to see a perhaps more-flawed-than-we-would-have-ever-guessed Terry.

I reference Romans 5:6-21.  Note the entirety; but specifically verses 17 and 18.

• For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of the righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.
• So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.

My questions:

• Are we to understand it is easier to be lost than to be saved?  
• Is condemnation more powerful than righteousness?
• Would this make Adam's sin stronger than Jesus' salvation?

Is our believing in Jesus a weakened criteria for salvation?  Is the way we tend to believe in him somehow a church short-sheeting that retracts from his deeply masterful move?  Have we reduced belief in Jesus to a quick-step in our plan of salvation which is to cause a gain in momentum on our way to the big and meaningful step; baptism?

It is possible I'm doing nothing but hair-splitting.  Again, from experience though, I have been through too many tearful moments with a brother or a sister who checked off the five steps, sat in the pews three times a week, were facing death any day now...and were terrified they were lost.

Thus, my original question.  Are we saying words like believing in Jesus in a way that weakens his mission as well as our own hearts?  Has the Christ-ian realm spoken rather nonchalantly over time to the extent mankind has come to receive Adam's unrighteousness without a blink of a thought while giving hoop-service to Jesus' conquering move of love from the Cross?

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him....II Cor. 5:21.