I wonder what methodology he will be using.
Persnally I would propose to use the word Potential whenever the word God would normally have been invoked. It works logically at all levels.
Nobody can either believe or stop believing at will. The fact that he gave it an end point says to me that he is planning to start believing again after the year is up.. If he was serious that he wanted to live as an atheist there would be no reason to announce it. He could do it privately if he wasn't trying to make a spectacular statement to his believing brethren. I say he has announced and is publicizing it because he knows very well he will "go back" to a life of believing. LoisI don't think these two statements can both be said sincerely. Either he can stop believing at will then turn it back on or can't know he will "go back". You qualify it with the scare quotes, so I guess you're saying you think he is lying. But I think you are missing what he means by "trying" atheism. And having read his blog and heard him speak, if he's lying, he's damn good at it.
I’m guessing, but as I see it, he was a pastor of a church and believed in god. He wondered what kind of thinking an athiest could possibly have and how it would affect his/her life. So he decided to check it out by pushing his belief back into the non-(not sub)-conscious part of his brain so it wouldn’t get in the way of his understanding the erroneous thinking of atheists.
Quite possibly he saw this as the only way he could understand atheist thinking well enough to correct their delusions.
He apparently couldn’t communicate this reasoning to his congregation because they kicked him out. It’ll be interesting to see, at the end of the year, whether he goes back to theism or finds he’s converted himself in the “wrong” direction. 
Occam
Nobody can either believe or stop believing at will. The fact that he gave it an end point says to me that he is planning to start believing again after the year is up.. If he was serious that he wanted to live as an atheist there would be no reason to announce it. He could do it privately if he wasn't trying to make a spectacular statement to his believing brethren. I say he has announced and is publicizing it because he knows very well he will "go back" to a life of believing. LoisI don't think these two statements can both be said sincerely. Either he can stop believing at will then turn it back on or can't know he will "go back". You qualify it with the scare quotes, so I guess you're saying you think he is lying. But I think you are missing what he means by "trying" atheism. And having read his blog and heard him speak, if he's lying, he's damn good at it. I just don't think anyone can truly "try" theism or atheism. He can try acting like an atheist but he can't be one without actually dropping god belief. I don't know if he's lying or is deluded. It's one or the other. Lois
I just don't think anyone can truly "try" theism or atheism. He can try acting like an atheist but he can't be one without actually dropping god belief. I don't know if he's lying or is deluded. It's one or the other. LoisI won't put words in his mouth, his blog is well written and not overly lengthy. I think "try" was a word that Mehta or Myers attributed to him, not his own. I don't know what words he could use for this very public display of his thoughts. What makes him interesting to me is that he is letting us in on his questioning, rather than the usual story we get of a pastor who "comes out" after years of private anguish.
Ryan has moved onto Patheos, which should really open up the conversation. In a recent post he links to a radio show he was on. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/yearwithoutgod/2014/02/04/my-conversation-with-cash-loveand-dave-foda/By the end of the show, the hosts are convinced he is headed toward atheism. The hosts are former fundamentalists from N.C. Ryan talks of his liberal church in Hollywood that accepted gays. That may put him in the “not a real Christian" bucket for many, but he is also well versed in the Bible and I have not heard him either denigrating other Christians or making the standard lame excuses for the evil in the Bible. Once or twice in this interview he says, “what I used to say was.." What sets him apart is not that he is on the typical path of liberal preachers who want to reform Christianity, he is taking the next logical step of reading philosophy, increasing his understanding of historical context, and even engaging atheists. He is doing it in a more honest way than I’ve ever seen. And I’ve looked. I got into a few theological debates with my last pastor, who would end them by giving me a book. I finally asked him to read one of my books and he refused. This guy is not doing that. It's long, so here's a couple high points. About ½ hour, discussing blog comments, Cash (one of the hosts) says, if this is a publicity stunt, it’s (adult language emphasis) brilliant, that you started months ago, leaving your church last March, that takes a lot of planning. They have some good laughs about this through the show. At 1:54 they talk about a basic tenet of all religions, which came out in a discussion he had with Penn Gillette, that the faith experience is something that can’t be shared. We can only discuss something if we can agree that we had the same experience. So faith is a retreat. It is where a believer when they have lost the ability to share their experience with others. Two faithful people could agree that is a place to go, but they still don’t know if they are sharing the same experience or not. Anyone who can see that, and discuss it like he does can not be faking it. A good section of the show follows that. Cash talks about how well spoken he is and how he came to this, not out of anger, but “the right way", even if he sticks to theism, he’ll be able to bring his interpretation of atheism back to that world. Bell says, “we all need to win". Calls himself a “bridge person" and feels like being in the middle is doing more good than picking a side. I agree. At this point, I'm more worried that he will lose his theist audience.
I’m tellin’ ya’. This guy is good. It starts out with some standard “we are star dust” stuff but he goes deeper into the fear of dying.
As he says, “The reason I love Ash Wednesday so much—and the entire season of Lent, right up to, but not including, Easter Sunday—is that it is the most honest season of the church year. “You are dust, and to dust you will return.” Yes! Anything else is just being greedy."