In the 2nd Century, a man who went by the name of Celsus wrote several papers rebuking Christianity as an irrational religion
A Christian by the name of Origen wrote in response....and thus began a long history of discourse and debate...

In the modern world, where is the similar literature?
While several intelligent men have made interesting cases for Atheism(Dawkins and Hitchins for example), I have not seen many purely philosophical papers or books to the contrary...

I understand that there are all sorts of books pointing out that the bible says X in book Y under passage Z....
But where are the papers reminiscent of Origen, Aquinas, and Descartes?

Where are the intelligent discourses that defend theism from a neutral perspective?
Where are the philosophical discussions on the topic?
The last good book I read on the topic was an argument from a Christian priest that Hinduism's system of samsara was more spiritually fulfilling than the Christian concept of Hell.....
I know that there must be books/papers/articles/etc that make a rational argument for theism(and in particular Christianity).

BTW...if you respond....please try to respond with texts that do not rely heavily on biblical quotation or make such logically invalid arguments that they would receive an F in a high school philosophy class....

Most of the really good arguments seem to have been used up. There's not actually anything new being said in this topic.

Agreed....but it isn't as if modern theistic debaters are hearkening back to the arguments of old....

The modern pro-theistic debate seems to be entwined in an intelligence vacuum

I would also agree. It seems that the theism/atheism argument has been hashed out fairly well, and early on. In addition, I think there are a couple of aspects of history/society that have affected modern arguments on this topic. First, the theists have suppressed atheistic thought for centuries. Atheists were not allowed to make arguments, so only a brave few did. As a result of this oppression, we have a culture that associates atheism with negative, even taboo qualities. Even in today's relatively free environment, atheists are discriminated against and persecuted. For some reason theistic arguments and thus religions are universally tolerated and respected, no matter how illogical or irrational. The same tolerance and respect are not extended to atheism. Since it is not a religion, it does not fall under religion's magical blanket of protection from attack. This has caused many atheists to have to hide their beliefs, even from their own families and friends. I feel that this has caused the debate to be stifled, since we are still in a situation where only a brave few are able to make any arguments with the theists.

Times are changing though. Society seems to be moving in a direction that will allow for a rekindling of this debate. Atheism is slowly gaining a measure of tolerance and respect, even acceptance. It is only a matter of time and through social movements like the Brights that it will one day soon be just as acceptable to polite society to say that you are an atheist as it is to say you are a Christian, Jew, Muslim etc.

As for the question of "where are the new rational arguments for theism?", I don't think there are any. First, let me state that I don't think that many of the old arguments were all that particularly good, and that nearly all of them have been thoroughly and adequately countered. The theists did manage to gain authoritative power and were thus able to crush opposition politically and socially. As a result, theists have been largely unopposed in their arguments and have moved away from ration and logic. Perhaps, with the challenge of the new science based atheistic arguments, theists will have to step it up and we will see some new rational arguments in favor of theism.

All excellent posts on this topic and very relevant. I haven't seen a single religious advocate post here! For the best website I have seen dealing with all aspects of atheism, please see: http://www.edge.org
Happy reading!