A Dying Professor Delivers the Lecture of a Lifetime

WSJ ^ | September 20, 2007; | JEFF ZASLOW

[wizr]

Excuse me. Sorry.

[SkyPilot]

It was a great lecture, and you tried to crap on it.

Oh good heavens redness. "Crap" on it? You sound like a liberal who over reaches and over stretches to make a paper argument - such as all conservatives who oppose affirmative action are "racists."

Stop it.

Wizr asked questions, as I did, as to why such a lecture was conspicuously thin on your relationship with God when you are soon to face Him.

__________________________________________________________________

Wizr,

I see the atheists on the forum did their level best to berate you about your posts, as they did mine. But take heart. What we asked was that if someone was going to give a great discussion of their own death defined by life's "Great Profound Questions" - perhaps that discussion should involve God, Salvation, Heaven, Hell, Mercy, and Judgment.

These are things you and I know that Christ felt were most important. During His mission on earth, He didn't dwell on politics, fashion, music, rhetoric, altruism, literature, science, or engineering - even though all of those things were created by Him.

A dying person can sometimes be worshiped too far - as per the wedding bride with a microphone. No one would dare interrupt her. That doesn't make it "profound."

My friend Gary died of bone cancer 2 years ago at age 45. He was a wonderful man. Handsome. Smart. Athletic. Kind.

He was also a brother in Jesus Christ. He would comfort me in my troubles, while he had bruises and bandages on his arms. We spoke often of his going to heaven, and he recommended a book about it to me.

If all the agnostics and atheists on FR want to swoon over this man's speech, that is fine with me. But I really am not impressed with someone's self-eulogy if it doesn't mention Christ.

I see he mentioned "his church" once, but he never articulated anything about his faith or God. Again, perhaps he felt this wasn't the proper venue, but if this "final lecture" wasn't, when IS the proper time?

The great mathematician, physicist, and philosopher Blaise Pascal was asked what the greatest truth he ever found in life.

He had it sewn into the liner of his old suit pocket.

When they took the paper out, it read only two words: "Jesus Christ."

[SkyPilot]

Please see post #61. Thanks.

[rednesss]

Please see my middle finger. Nowhere was it ever mentioned that this was his self-eulogy. This was his last professional lecture as a Professor. You do realize he didn't go off stage and drop dead don't you???? He has another 2-5 months of relatively healthy life before he enters into a downward spiral. The man's life work was computer science and virtual reality. He was giving a lecture at his work. In front of his colleagues and students about his life's work. And about something that he wanted to impart to people, have dreams, achieve those dreams, help others achieve their dreams, and above all else have fun while you are doing it. He was not at his church giving his self-eulogy. Do you understand the concept of venue????? I'm neither an atheist nor an agnostic, Southern Baptist here.

So just to recap, he has a PhD in computer science, not theology. He works at Carnegie Mellon University, not Oral Roberts. He was in an auditorium among students and colleagues, not a church. The theme of his presentation was "How To Achieve Your Childhood Dreams", not "How Jesus Has Transformed My Life". He is dying, but he didn't die right after he got finished with his lecture, he will have the chance for further communication with people in his life, he might even go to his church and talk about his relationship to God. That might be the reason that his lecture was conspicuously thin on his relationship with god.

[SkyPilot]

Please see my middle finger.

I see it, and no further.

Take care.

[rednesss]

Buh Bye.

[Yardstick]

Because the fact of consciousness points to an existance beyond the material.

[modest proposal]

sigh. how can so many arguments come from a nice story about a guy’s last lecture.

i think its great he was able to acknowledge his impending death in a positive manner to give closure to himself, his family and his students.

took some moxy i am sure.

[Paulus]

Well Said. My thoughts exactly.

[LenS]

As Mr. Blonder said above, Dr. Pausch’s big project has been a program named Alice. Alice is a programming language that uses 3-D graphics to make programming easier. It’s goal is to get more people programming by giving them a language that makes it easy to get programming syntax straight. Most students get lost in the syntax, thus reducing the number of programmers as students don’t pursue programming. The professor is big on getting women into computers also, so he hopes a different programming method will also help there.

Alice is pretty much done now and it’s been downloaded about a million times. So if it does succeed, the Dr. won’t get to see that. Hence, the Moses reference.

[LenS]

Sadly, knowing the current CIA, they’d send you on a suicide mission against the White House or maybe Israel.

[LenS]

Sheesh, you sure as heck aren’t showing any of Christ’s compassion to the professor.

Besides, you’re being intellectually lazy. Instead of actually visiting his website or watching the video, you’re relying on a brief MSM article to judge a dying man. If you were St. Peter at the gates, you’d probably be rejecting entrants based on their looks.

[LenS]

I always laugh at the left for being more scared of Christians doing nothing than of Muslims actually murdering people. But then I read comments like yours and I wonder if maybe they should be worried a bit. I suspect you’re in for a big surprise in the afterlife.