Viewpoints that allege that there is a “higher purpose” than to live pleasantly, and that seek to substitute their own view of what men should strive for in place of that which Nature provided when she gave us the faculty of happiness.

Incomplete sentence, I’m not sure what the author is alleging here.  I assume that it is the position that pleasure is the highest good.  This is the same axiomatic difference between the Schools… again.

Modern stoicism seeks to brush under the rug its soggy foundations, and to try to convince people that “virtue” is worth living for in and of itself.

This is an axiom of the Stoic school, and indeed most of the Socratic schools.  It’s an axiom, which means it either needs to be accepted or rejected.  Not proven.  What’s a soggy foundation and why does that matter for this discussion, even if it were a thing?

The modern stoics assure you that you can reject their “divine fire” origin of the universe, you can reject their Spock-like worship of “logic” over the facts of reality, and you can reject their praise of a life of anesthesia from all pain (AND joy) as the goal of living. You can reject all these, they say, because “our goal is happiness too!”

Some modern Stoics, typically the athiests, make this statement that you can rejected Stoic Phyiscs.  Not all do.  I see it as romantic and poetic language which bears shocking similarity to modern physics.

I assume ‘Spock-like worship’ is an ad hominem of sorts.  

There are eupathos or ‘healthy emotions’ like cheerfulness in Stoicism.   [LINK:  Donald Robert’s site].  The Epicurean is either ignorant of this or is ignoring it to score debate points.  Either way, no-go.

But what a perversion of a word! Modern Stoicism likes to talk about “happiness” without ever defining the term in recognizable ways.  But when you dig deep enough, you will always find that Stoic happiness has nothing to do with pleasure.

The term eudaimonia which is translated poorly in English by ‘happiness’ has very little to do with hedone or pleasure. This is an axiomatic difference between Epicureanism and Stoicism. Congrats! They’ve re-stated the 2,000 year old distinction between the schools. Again.  Well done.

Additionally, nearly every modern Stoic source devotes significant time (and early) to explaining the (admittedly) jargony way we use the word.  It’s an unfair characterization that we “hide” the meaning.  Stoicism does have a very particular and specific vocabulary, and this was used as a critique even during the early and middle Stoa.  It’s a fair point, but not enough to dismiss the School in its entirety.

Instead, you will find the stoics snuggling up to “pain” as if it is somehow valuable in itself.

Like the pain experienced when we exercise for health?  Some hardships are for a higher good than mere pleasure.   Methamphetamine intoxication might feel good, but destroys the body.  This is why pleasure cannot be a good nor an evil, it’s an indifferent. 

They have always done this and they always will. And that is because the essence of Stoicism is the rejection of the faculty of pleasure given us by nature.

I would say it’s the domestication of pleasure, not the rejection.  I suspect this is a distinction the author might not appreciate, however.

There were specific groups in the ancient world who were labeled “enemies of the human race” for their intolerant religious views.

Oh?  Which ones?  Is making “enemies of the human race” even advisable?  Seems kind of tyrannical… we’ll come back to that.

Well my friends the intolerance of the stoics for the pleasure of the ordinary man on the street beats far stronger in the heart of the establishment today than the irrationality of religion ever did.

Marcus said “educate them or put up with them,”  that’s kind of the definition of ‘tolerance,’ no?  

There is also an argumentum ad populum.  At one point, most folks believed slavery was right.  They were wrong, and the popularization of this idea didn’t make it right.  The Stoics will not force you to stop chasing pleasure, the fickle thing it is, but we might try and suggest you re-think the choice.

Suddenly Stoics are the establishment?  I thought it was a dead and forgotten ancient philosophy?

In seeking to dowse the flames of what they call emotional turbulence, they are really dowsing the flame of ALL emotion, especially the joy and delight that they hate so much.

Asked and answered, see eupathos.  [LINK:  Donald Robert’s site]

And their views have gradually leached so deeply into society that otherwise well-meaning people can no longer interpret even Epicurus himself in any way other than consistently with their ascetic view of human life.

Unsubstantiated assertion.  Is Stoicism old and meaningless or so powerful to obliterate all other interpretations?  Which argument are we having?

Even here, we see loose talk of “painlessness” as the goal of life, and “tranquility” as the absence of all engagement with the world, as if that were possible for any but the dead (whom the stoics emulate as best they can).

Stoicism does not assume mere tranquility is good (Irvine is the exception, here), but ‘human excellence’ virtue or arete is.  If it were mere tranquility, we could all take opium every waking moment to achieve that.  Hey… that almost seems like an Epicurean option!  

Epicurean philosophy arose in a garden where people were truly devoted to pleasure – the alpha and omega of a blessed life.

This is assumed to be a ‘good’ but that is the point of contention between the two Schools.  Stating the axiom isn’t useful in the debate.

Asceticism and hatred of joy and delight were the furthest things from their minds.

Actually, Epicurus states one should live simply so that the pleasure taken in material things is more dear and sharper.  Eating simple foods allows you to enjoy the sweet all the more.  The author seems ignorant of *both* school in the discussion.  

A normal person can tell the difference between Epicureanism and Stoicism, you know, because of the spelling.

The Epicurean movement would never have prospered in the ancient world had it been

Is this true?  On what grounds?

— it would have been immediately recognized by all as the hypocrisy which does truly exist, in Stoicism.

Unsubstantiated  claim of hypocrisy.

Nietzche nailed this on the head far better than I can.

We actually agree on this point.

For those who have not seen this quote, it is one to read over and over again, and to internalize til the understanding behind it becomes second nature:

“You desire to LIVE “according to Nature”? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power–how COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To live–is not that just endeavoring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, “living according to Nature,” means actually the same as “living according to life”–how could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature “according to the Stoa,” and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise– and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves–Stoicism is self-tyranny–Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature? . . . But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to “creation of the world,” the will to the causa prima.”

This person then has the rest of the argument backwards. Reasoning what is natural is not a prescription for nature to follow, it is for us to follow. They’ve read Nietzsche. Cool. Did they understand what they read? Probably not, since their interpretation of Stoicism is so far off.
Self-tyranny is a contradiction. That’s called “freedom of choice.” If one wants to be a mere pleasure seeking robot, one can do that. It’s not advisable from a Stoic perspective, however it’s possible. If I seek to regulate my behaviors and thinking, that’s my choice. There’s not external force involved, which a tyranny necessarily has. The term is totally irrelevant to the discussion.

There is one philosophy that does NOT become a system based on “logic” with true believers who think they can “reason” their way into telling Nature what to do.

Why is “not based on logic” something worth while?  Are we looking for divine revelation, or maybe something that just reinforces our biases?  Hang on, if ‘logic’ is such an evil, why make a (poorly formed) argument against the Stoics?  Isn’t that an exercise in logic?

There is one philosophy that does NOT seek to create the world in its own image, and to dowse the flame of joy and delight which is the motive power of every living thing.

Suggesting that folks live according to the world *as it is* is not trying to re-shape it to one’s own nature.  It’s a standard practice in debate to (in good faith), to portray your opponent’s positions accurately and well.  That’s not happening here.

There is one philosophy that does not rebel against, but indeed elevates to the center, the faculty that Nature gave us to live our lives.

I’m going to be honest, I don’t know what this means.  It’s probably not our ruling faculty, the hegemonikon of reason, though.

There is one philosophy that recognizes “Divine Pleasure, the Guide of Life” as the true “goddess of nature” for both men and all other living things, and yields to her the respect and gratitude to which she is entitled. And that is the philosophy of Epicurus.

This person has systematically redefined words, then argued against these straw-definitions, and thinks they’ve done something worth while. They’re wrong, there, too.  By simply parroting the basic position of the school, while failing to support them, the author acts as if the argument is won, but it hasn’t even been argued in good faith.

Over all: congrats on the sophistry.