The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser

Tag: Blog News

  • Blog Update

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    Some of you have let me know that you are having problems leaving and reading comments. Some of you are getting “nonce” error messages.

    I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.

    I’ve switched to the default theme to see if this fixes the problem. The design is incomplete, but I’m more concerned with fixing the access errors than making the site look pretty. Once I put my finger on the problem, I will design and update the theme/site accordingly.

    Your help testing this theme is greatly appreciated. Please flush your browser cache before doing so. I have a sneaking suspicion that the cache system is not working as it should with the old theme — which is 12 years old.

    One goal is to simplify the site while at the same time improving functionality and page load speeds. Just changing the theme dramatically reduced page load speeds. Yea, a small victory for Bruce.😜

    I’ve been a WordPress user for 20 years. I’m not an expert, but I do know my way around the software. The problem now is that I’m way too sick to spend a day or two trying to figure things out. I’m at that place now where my active window each day is limited. Some days, I never make it out of bed. Two weeks ago, I was in bed for five straight days. Not good, to say the least. These days, I look for small time windows to write and care for my personal responsibilities. Yesterday, was a “good” day. Today is a “not good” day. I’m doing what I can, but I’m losing the battle. No, I’m not on death’s door — I don’t think, anyway — but I am facing serious physical problems which also affect my cognitive functions. This, above all, frustrates the heaven/hell/shit out of me. My once sharp mind has turned into a dull knife, though I have moments of sharpness, and that’s when I write. I hope you’ll understand.

    I’ve had thoughts about hanging it up, but most days I desire to write. I can’t guarantee how things will be going forward, but for today I still desire to write and help as many people as I can.

    If you happen to be a WordPress designer and are interested in helping me, please let me know.

    Please let me know if you encounter any errors or problems.

    Your love, kindness, and support is appreciated.

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  • Bruce, Are You Dead? No, But I’m Working on It

    Come on, what’s a little gallows humor in the midst of a dark, trying, and at times overwhelming, season of life. Sometimes, laughing in the face of suffering is all any of us can do. I know that’s the case for me, anyway. Not that I sit around laughing as I writhe in pain. No, in those moments I want to swallow a handful of pills and drift into sweet, peaceful nothingness. I want to think better days lie ahead for me, but my gut and seven decades of life suggest otherwise. I could be wrong, as I oft have been over these many years, but, at the very least, I’m on the short end of life. Instead of grand plans for the future, managing health struggles consume my daily life, often demanding I live by the hour instead the day.

    I won’t give you a long recitation on the current status of my health. Doctors remain perplexed, and while scans and blood tests reveal oddities here and there, nothing that screams: Eureka! We found the problem. You are still going to die, but at least you will know what killed you.

    I see a new endocrinologist next month. One doctor wonders if some of my symptoms might hormone related. More tests, looking for the proverbial needle in a pile of almost identical needles. I find myself thinking, “Can’t I be on the winning side of the odds just once before I die?” 🤣 A raspy, heavy voice from the dark laughed and said, “Surely, you jest. God is punishing you for saying God Dammit in 2005.” Well, God Dammit, Jesus, must you be so petty? It’s not like I ate a forbidden apple, picked up sticks on the Sabbath, or masturbated. Now, those are some “sins” that require severe punishment, right?

    Long term readers know my medical history, so I won’t recite it here. Everything remains the same on that front, albeit somewhat worse depending on the day. What is of more immediate concern is my profuse sweating (especially at night), unregulated feeling of hot/cold, and precipitous drops in blood glucose levels for no apparent reason. As you might imagine, these problems are far from ideal, 🤣 so that’s why I’m seeing another endocrinologist.

    Fatigue, chronic insomnia, and increasing immobility all make getting out of bed in the morning difficult, and some days impossible. Pleas from my life partner, “Bruce,You have got to get up,” followed by some sort of bribe hoped to draw me from my bed, no longer work. I know I’m at a bad place, but that’s where the car broke down with a blown motor, so here I remain. I try. What more can I do?

    In February, I was diagnosed with melanoma skin cancer on my neck. The cancer appeared suddenly and quickly grew. It was successfully removed. I have a nasty scar to prove it.

    Last month, I was diagnosed with basal cell cancer on my left hand and squamous cell cancer on the right side of my neck. I had both growths surgically removed. I also had a large cyst on my back removed at the same time.

    Well, enough of this. I’m not whining or complaining. Just talking to my friends; letting them know that I’m down, but not out. I haven’t quit blogging, and I still hope to write again. Maybe even today or tomorrow. Until then, I appreciate your love, kindness, and support.

    If you have written or texted me and I have not responded, please accept my apology for my negligence. I’ve had several people get irate with me because I haven’t responded to them. Sorry about that, but I’ve been forced to cut a lot of things out of my life, and that includes responding to emails, texts, social media messages, and voice mails. I hope to do better in the future, but I can’t make any promises. It’s interesting to note what’s not so important when death is stalking you. Life is quickly reduced to bare essentials; people and things that matter to you.I have thought about farming out contact form responses to someone who has read my writing for a long time and has an in depth knowledge of my political, social, and theological views. Someone answering for me would be speaking on my behalf, so it’s important they understand my beliefs. If this is something that might interest you, please let me know and I’ll put you in touch with Carolyn, my editor. As my longtime editor and friend, she knows what I need on this front.

    I appreciate your understanding.

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  • I Need Your Help

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    Someone filed a complaint about how this site handles cookies. I am required by federal/international law to give readers the option of opting out of cookies. This has never been a problem, until now. I suspect the person who filed the complaint has ill-intent; it doesn’t matter. I’m now on the clock with my service provider. If I’m not compliant, they are required by law to take down my site.

    I thought I had the problem fixed; they filed another complaint. I have one remaining issue with the JETPACK plugin. It loads its cookie before the approval choice, which is not allowed.

    I could set my site for US only. This would immediately cut off international readers from this site. This would fix the problem, but I’m not willing to do so. I have too many international readers to do that to them (and me).

    You may have noticed that you were served a cookie approval box when first coming to this site. Once a reader chooses to accept or reject some or all cookies that setting will be remembered for one year.

    I have spent days working to make this site compliant, and as of today, I think it is. Except for the JETPACK issue mentioned above. I can disable the plugin, but I really don’t want to do that, since doing so will affect reader experience in a negative way. What I need is for someone with WordPress expertise — especially the cookie process — to go through my site and make sure everything is compliant. I had to remove several plugins that improved the site for readers. I couldn’t find a way to make them compliant.

    If you have expertise in this area and would like to help me, please let me know.

    Otherwise, please make a burnt offering to your god for me; or a grain offering if your deity is vegan. If you don’t have a deity, I appreciate telepathic good vibes too. 🤣

    I’ve been running on near empty for a while now. This hassle has caused further energy loss, as I suspect the person who complained knows. I’m sure they are happy-happy-happy causing me pain. Otherwise, they would have sent me an email about the problem instead of contacting my hosting provider.

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  • Are You Getting “Nonce” Errors on This Site?

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    What is a nonce error? According to Google:

    A “nonce” (number used once) is a security token used to verify that a request to a server is legitimate and intentional. A nonce error means the server’s security check failed, usually because the token expired, was issued to someone else, or was cached incorrectly.

    O’Brien Media adds:

    When running a WordPress website, you want to keep it secure so that your forms, content, data, and users are safe from attacks and other malicious activity. One way you can do that is by using “nonces”.

    “Nonces” are one-time tokens designed to protect forms and URLs from certain types of misuse, like Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF). Basically, a “nonce” is generated for a given user in a given context so that it’s unique to not only the WordPress install and user, but to the action, the object of the action, and the time of the action.

    So let’s say a user opens a post to edit in their WordPress dashboard, then decides to delete it. When submitting the request to delete it, WordPress will verify if a previously generated “nonce” expected for this exact WordPress install, user, purpose, post, and time period was sent along. It will then decide if the user’s request can be safely processed. If it can’t, then it will return an error message.

    This error mechanism is designed to prevent repeated, expired, malicious, or otherwise unwanted submissions and requests from being processed on your WordPress website — but it can also prevent real users from submitting forms or completing other actions on your site.

    I am aware of this problem, It has been an on and off problem for a while. I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. This is no minor issue for me to fix, but I plan to dedicate a day or two next week to resolving the problem. I am pretty sure that my theme is the issue, but I won’t know that until I swap out the theme with a new one. I have been using the same theme since 2014. Once the theme is changed, the nonce problem should resolve itself. If not, that means I’ll need to consider caching issues or some other unknown issue as the culprit. WordPress just pushed out a major software upgrade. It is causing several minor conflicts with my theme. Another sign that it is time for me to make a change. One reason I am hesitant is that WordPress has gone to Gutenberg block editing for building themes, a more laborious task, to say the least.

    I shall overcome, right after someone backs this truck off my body. 🙂

    I appreciate your patience and understanding.

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    Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

    Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

    You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

  • Question and Answer Time with Bruce, the Atheist

    It’s been awhile since I’ve solicited questions from readers. Here’s your opportunity to ask me anything, and I mean anything. Whether you are a Christian, Muslim, young earth creationist, atheist, agnostic, anti-theist, humanist, Evangelical, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB), Catholic, Orthodox, Charismatic, Mormon, mainline Christian, pagan, complementarian, trad wife, chronic pain sufferer, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Progressive, socialist, communist, MAGA, Christian Nationalist, White Nationalist, or a Bud Light drinker, this is your opportunity to ask me a question. Whatever labels you wear, ask away.

    No question is out of bounds. I am even waiving the comment rules for this exercise. I plan to also clear the moderation/banned list so these miscreants, I mean fellow biped, have an opportunity to ask questions too. This is a limited time offer.

    If you have sent me a question in the past that I have not answered, please submit it again. I’ll do my best to answer it.

    Please leave your questions in the comment section below, email me your question, or leave it in a voice mail or text at 567-210-1145.

    I look forward to receiving your thoughtful comments and answering them.

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    Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

    Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

    You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

  • Blog News and Gripes

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    I am aware of the fact that you who subscribe to the mailing list for this blog may be seeing formatting issues in the emails you receive. This has been going on for several weeks. I have contacted WordPress Jetpack support. I am awaiting their response. Please be patient as I work to resolve this issue.

    I have been using the same blog theme for a decade. There are small problems affecting readers (and me) that I attribute to the theme. The only way to test this theory is to change the theme. Here’s my dilemma: tackling this project is more than I can physically handle, at this time — especially if I have to start from scratch. I could use help on this project. If you are a website designer with WordPress experience who would like to lend me a hand, I appreciate it. If you have a theme suggestion, please email me and I will take a look at it. There are different ways to get this done, so I am open to suggestions and constructive criticism.

    Thank you for your support.

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    Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

    Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

    You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

  • Altering My Policy on Quoting Bible Verses in Comments

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    Previously, I have prevented Evangelical zealots from filling the comment section with proof texts, often without any commentary. Such people think that the Bible is self-explanatory; which is contrary to what the Good Book actually teaches on the matter. Question? If the Bible is self-explanatory, why are there 900 or so Christian colleges in the United States that train people for 4-6 years to preach the self-explanatory Bible? If the Bible is self-explanatory, why do Evangelical preachers hold multiple services every week to teach congregations the Word of God?

    With that thought in mind, I have decided to alter this site’s policy on quoting Bible verses in the comment section.

    You may now quote Bible verses as long as you do not claim they are supernatural or authoritative. The verses will be treated just like the words of any other written text.

    You are required, then, to state why you are quoting these verses. Don’t assume we know. We are not as smart as you are. I received a Men in Black-like mind wipe when I deconverted, so I lost fifty years of knowledge overnight. I don’t know squat compared to you, oh great one!

    If you invoke God, the supernatural, or some sort of authority, you are required to give evidence for the existence of God; that this God is the God of the Christian Bible; that the God of the Christian Bible supernaturally birthed the Bible, giving it his authority. The Bible is like no other book, you may say, but such faith claims will not suffice. You must defend your God and his Bible on the fields of Evidence and Reason.

    If you cannot do so, your proof texts are not welcome.

    Why should any of us care what your holy book says?

    Well, it’s God’s Word.

    Prove it.

    You wrongly assume your Bible’s words have some sort of magical power or meaning to the non-initiated or those no longer in the cult.

    They don’t.

    Talking about the Bible can be interesting. I enjoy the intellectual exercise. After all, I was a Christian for 50 years — 17 years longer than Jesus was 😂

    But, it’s just a book, no different from hundreds of other books I’ve owned.

    However, once you claim the Bible is supernatural and authoritative, questions are sure to follow.

    I hope you understand,

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    Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

    Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

    You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

  • UPDATED: Important Blog News

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    March 6, 2026

    The DoS attack has been dealt with by going to an upgraded ($180 a year) CDN (content delivery network) service. This service will keep this site up and running going forward. I had to change the DNS (Domain Name Service) records to reflect the new CDN. This may introduce issues I am not aware of, so if something is not working for you as it should, please let me know and I try to fix it.

    It takes DNS records up to 48 hours to propagate, so you might see intermittent unavailability. You will also see a security page/check which will remain until Siteground is sure the DoS attack has stopped.

    The CDN service will provide global data hosting, so readers should see quicker page load times.

    Thank you for your understanding.

    Bruce

    March 5, 2026

    This site was down earlier tonight due to a DoS (denial of service) attack. Hackers attempt to flood a site with massive amount of data, overwhelming the server. At one point, this site had 10,000 users a minute. Everything is up and running again, but I can’t guarantee service won’t suffer if hackers try to disrupt this site again. Usually reserved for big sites, I must have pissed somebody off. Maybe I finally got God’s attention. 🤣🤣❤️

    This problem is beyond my control. I hope you understand.

    Bruce

  • AI Policy for This Site

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    AI (artificial intelligence) is all the rage these days, and its supporters and opposition are increasingly vocal, and, at times, hostile towards anyone who thinks differently. Unbeknownst to most people is that AI has been used to some degree or another for years. I am a former professional photographer, retiring after I could no longer hold a pro camera with a heavy lens level and straight. It was one of the saddest days in my life when I had sell thousands of dollars of camera/studio equipment that had given be so much joy over the years. I used AI-based software to edit photos. Adobe introduced basic AI in its content aware function in 2010. In September 2023, Adobe integrated AI into Photoshop. What’s different now is that non-technical Joe has access to tools that used to require extensive training to master.

    This site does not use AI to write text. It never has and never will. AI is used to check grammar before a post is sent on to Carolyn, my editor. All text written on this site — unless it is a guest post — belongs to me. I alone own all blame or praise for anything written on this site.

    I do, however, use AI to make graphics for this site. I make no apologies for doing so. Most comments and emails about the AI graphics have been positive. The graphics provide keen insight into the warped mind of Evangelical-turned-atheist Bruce Gerencser. More “warpness” forthcoming. 🙂

    Calling me lazy or a destroyer of jobs is not helpful. Neither claim is true.

    Thank you for your understanding.

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    Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

    Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

    You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

  • Blog News

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    This site was down for over eighteen hours today. Thankfully, a friend and long time reader texted me to let me know it was down. I also received several emails alerting me to the problem. Thank you for taking the time to message and email me. Everything should be back to normal now that I paid the damn domain registration bill! I’ve been so sick over the last two months that I ignored emails that I shouldn’t have. My desk is piled with shit I haven’t felt up to dealing with. Lesson learned, but I’m too sick to care. To eliminate this problem going forward, I turned on the auto renewal function.

    I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

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    Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

    Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

    You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.