James Lindsay Books

There aren’t a lot of atheist Conservatives and there are even fewer who are anti-religious, but the modern right has some odd bedfellows. Enter James A Lindsay.

With a PhD in mathematics from the University of Tennessee, his education inspires his works. He describes himself as a mathematician, free thinker, skeptic and a Southerner.

Lindsay has written four books on the topic of God. Ore more specifically he’s written four books on why he doesn’t believe God exists and why there are still plenty of reasons to live a fruitful life. Despite his lack of belief, he’s almost singularly focused on religion and how it impacts everything in life.

More recently, Lindsay has opened his eyes to the activist intellectuals who are running America’s universities and wrote, “Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody.” In this book he takes on concepts like Critical Race Theory and how it’s harming those it says it aims to help. His stance has led to two appearances on the Joe Rogan podcast.

Politically, Lindsay has changed course from being staunchly anti-Trump to being a Trump supporter. He cited the Left’s extremism and departure from liberalism as his main reason.

Several of his books he has co-authored with Peter Boghossian. The two are genuine troublemakers for the intellectual class. Together with Helen Pluckrose they authored twenty papers and submitted them for peer review to be published by different journals. The papers, however, were all written as a hoax. Taking a page from Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” they take absurdly extreme views that the Left professes to on everything from race to gender and beyond. In fact, one is essentially a re-write of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, but re-written in feminist language.

The trio’s antics were found out but before anyone caught on, seven of the twenty papers had been accepted, six were under review and only six had been refected.

James Lindsay Books

Race Marxism

If you’re curious about Critical Race Theory, what it is, and where it came from: we can’t urge you strong enough to read this book.

James Lindsay outlines how CRT uses race, rather than economic class, as the central construct for understanding inequality.

More than an overview, this book breaks down CRT and exposes it. And it gives you the understanding to do so yourself.

Perhaps most importantly it outlines that, like all Marxist philosophies, it is doomed to failure.

Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody

Co-authored with Helen Pluckrose, James Lindsay takes on the woke talking points of the day, from ideas that only white people can be racist to the notion that there’s no such thing as biological sex.

If you’re baffled that people who profess to be sane can to hold these ideas, and worse, call you a racist or transphobic for not getting onboard, then this is a book for you.

Lindsay starts by giving a detailed account of how we got here, charting the origins of these ideas in the French postmodernist movement and how they have been espoused by the intellectual elites and codified in our institutions of higher education.

He argues that science isn’t racist, and that all social interactions aren’t just a Marxist power play. He then goes beyond to highlight how these concepts are inherently anti democratic and contrary to the liberal beliefs on which our entire society is founded.

A balanced approach, Lindsay acknowledges the evils of racism and inequality, but goes on to point out that this modern crop of radical ideas actually does more harm to those it purports to help.

How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide – 2019

Life in Light of Death – 2016

Everybody is Wrong About God – 2015

Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly – 2013

God Doesn’t; We Do: Only Humans Can Solve Human Challenges – 2012