I don’t know whether you are trying to say all joy is equivalent here.
In the sense that it's personal it perhaps is.
I think we have to wonder why the Archbishop of Canterbury is more likely to talk about joy than a celebrity atheist for instance.
You are mistaking how often those people talk about those things with how often you get to hear about it. For reasons that are still to be explained we still give a public forum to the Archbishop of Canterbury on pretty much any topic he wishes to opine on, but by contrast the opportunities for 'celebrity atheists' to get their message out is limited to instances where they are dealing with the institutions or philosophies of religion.
What we have then is Christians talking more of joy.
Perhaps we do, but perhaps we have that because Christianity doesn't want to talk about its failing basis or declining relevance and instead wants to pick other topics. It's like how the Tories don't want to talk about the effects of Brexit but talk about Starmer's backtracking a lot.
In terms of equivalence we must remember that Christians can also experience the joy of Rachmaninov, or football, or sex but not equate those joys with the joy of, as Alan puts it, being one with God and even a non believer should see the type of potential joy in having been the prodigal son or daughter being welcomed home by the Father.
And I don't put the joy of being a father up against the joy of scoring at try or remembering the freedoms being born in late 20th Century Britain brings me - those are quantitative differences, not qualitative.
Of course an atheist could argue that Christians have an inferior joy of the world (How do you measure that I wonder) as expressed in Douglas Adams’ horses laugh argument about enjoying the garden without the fairies at the bottom of it.
Strange that you should take Adams argument as an attack rather than him purely noting that he doesn't need you superstition to appreciate nature.
This of course appeals not only to the supposed superiority of atheist joy but seeks to ration joy in the process.
Who would have thought you might so badly misunderstand or misrepresent an argument?
O.
