From the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (pp 211-214):
"All men know that they must die. And it is important that we should understand the reasons and causes of our exposure to the vicissitudes of life and death, and the designs and purposes of God in our coming into the world, our sufferings here, and our departure hence. What is the object of our coming into existence, then dying and falling away, to be here no more? It is but reasonable to suppose that God would reveal something in reference to the matter, and it is a subject we ought to study more than any other. We ought to study it day and night, and for the world is ignorant in reference to their true condition and relation to God."
We should study death day and night? Indeed: we ought to study the very idea of death, since it highlights the strange nature of the plan of salvation. It is one thing, after all, to suggest that God undertook the creation in order to instruct weaker intelligences, etc. But it is another thing entirely to say that death is implied in the process: Why death?
The question is especially poignant given the subsequent teaching on the same page: "The great principle of happiness consists in having a boy. The devil has no body, and herein is his punishment . . . . All beings who have bodies have power over those who have not."
"The moment we revolt at anything which comes from God, the devil takes power."
