And often when Christians do simply try to point out their viewpoints they are reject out of hand as being self-righteous because that is all anybody knows.

In defense of Jeff's position, take any other hot-button political or moral issue out there and substitute it in for "religion" and "christianity" in his posts, and you still have a valid conclusion. The most visible people of any persuasion or belief seem to be the idiots, whereas the ones who quietly go on practicing and advancing their cause are generally pretty reasonable and tolerable, even if you don't agree with their cause.

In the irony of all ironies, one of the two or three Bible passages I can actually remember from my Church-going days taught this exact lesson, at least as I remember it. I don't remember the details (maybe some of you Bible-thumpers out there can help me ) but I remember it as two apostles (or at least disciples) talking about expressing their faith, and one of them wants to shout out to the world about how right they are and spread the word of God, and the other tells them that it's the guy who practices his faith without worrying how it's perceived or who agrees with him who is doing the right thing, and is more likely in tune with the original message of God. I wish I could be more specific than that, but I remember it well, because at the time, I was at a point in my life where I was starting to doubt the veracity of the faith I was born into (Catholicism) and it felt good to hear "from the source" that you can't always believe those who evangelize the loudest, sometimes, you need to come to your own conclusion.