if that were even close to being true then the whole verse is nonsense
If your version is correct, our reality is nonsense.
Do you have nothing to do, no choice whatsoever in what you believe?
No, it is not nonsense.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this [grace] is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
“Ephesians 2:8
For by grace (thi gar xariti).
Explanatory reason. “By the grace” already mentioned in verse 5 and so with the article.
Through faith (dia pistewv).
This phrase he adds in repeating what he said in verse 5 to make it plainer. “Grace” is God’s part, “faith” ours.
And that (kai touto).
Neuter, not feminine tauth, and so refers not to pistiv (feminine) or to xariv (feminine also), but to the act of being saved by grace conditioned on faith on our part. Paul shows that salvation does not have its source (ex umwn, out of you) in men, but from God. Besides, it is God’s gift (dwron) and not the result of our work. “
http://www.studylight.org/com/rwp/view.cgi?book=eph&chapter=002&verse=008