The article cited in the previous post

deserves a little fisking.

Not the Peikoff article, there is little there to disagree with.

This here paragraph, from Puritan Humbugs and a History of Christmas Bashing, by Jeff Westover, deserves [some] debunking, by a better historian than I, but I don't see any around here, so....

Here's the paragraph in full:

It must be noted that the England described by Dickens was not all that exaggerated. Scrooge may have been a fictional character but his attitudes were based in fact. These were terrible economic times and the budding Industrial Revolution turned minds to work – and not to holidays or the celebrations of them. Families of workers struggled mightily to make ends meet, working seven days a week and enduring horrific working conditions. It was an era of child labor and success was measured by the amount of work accomplished and money earned.

I don't quibble with the first two sentences. I'll check up on the economic situation as soon as I can. I don't doubt that the Protestant Work Ethic, or rather, Puritan teachings about how life is a vale of tears and we're supposed to suffer--"turn your laughter into mourning" the Good Book says--led to a great deal more suffering than "the pursuit of happiness", a competing English Enlightenment concept, ever did.

It's that sort of dilemma that makes Objectivists atheists.

Well, I'll carry on with this later.