Intellectuals

I had a recent experience reading a blog post by what I would term a "Mormon Intellectual" (or MI). I have a general dislike for intellectuals in general, but I really dislike the whole MI phenomenon. While I could agree with much of what was said by this MI, I could not escape the thought that the whole point of the blog post was to justify some erroneous behavior. The MI was asked his opinion on the matter he was discussing, because he is living at odds with church doctrine and practice. I think that a central thesis he was trying to make was that the "rules" are sometimes superceded by the "weightier matters". The evidence brought up was the times when Christ would have his disciples do things on the Sabbath that were contrary to the traditions, gathering food and healing, specifically. He equated this with his behavior, which is coincidentally contained in the Torah. The interesting thing to me is that the whole going against traditions wasn't actually going against the commandments within the Torah. The things that his critics accused him of were traditionally wrong, but not wrong according to the law established within the Torah. It really drives home the part in the Book of Mormon where it talks about when people are learned, they think they are wise. He made a lot of nice points, but the central thesis was fundamentally flawed. Beyond that his preface to the thesis spoke about learning and understanding the scriptures through the spirit. There is irony in that he is bringing that up to propose a thesis that seemingly is an attempt to justify some error in behavior. That sin will hinder his ability to learn and understand scripture through the spirit.