Thoughts on the Fall

From what I've heard, most of the Christian world believes that the Fall of Adam and Eve was a bad thing. (If I'm understanding that wrong, I apologize.)  Several years ago when my family and I were still living in Maryland, we went on a tour of an art museum with a group of homeschoolers.  Specifically, we were touring the religious art section.  At one point in the tour, our guide paused in front of a... well, I guess I'll call it a 3-D painting - it wasn't fully 3-D, but it wasn't a painting either.  Half carving?

Anyway, the tour guide talked about it for a little and, I can't remember how she said it, but she said something like it was the worst moment in the history of Christianity.  I do remember being totally confused at that.  Up to that point, I hadn't known that the rest of the Christian world believed differently about the Fall from the way The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes.  The Fall was necessary to God's plan of salvation.  Adam & Eve were innocent, immortal beings in the Garden of Eden, incapable of procreating their species, of knowing the difference between happiness and misery because they didn't have either one to help them learn.  Satan thought he was thwarting God's plan by convincing Eve to partake of the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, "for he knew not the mind of God, wherefore he sought to destroy the world." (Moses 4:6)  Someone suggested in Sunday School that Satan didn't have faith that Jesus could do what he had promised to do in the pre-mortal existence.  Satan, speaking through the serpent, told Eve that God knew that once she and Adam ate the fruit, they would be "as gods, knowing good and evil."  It was that knowledge, to know good from evil and being able to choose between the two in order to progress, that was so desirable.

After they were banished from the Garden of Eden, they learned more fully about the plan of salvation and the opportunity they and all mankind had to be redeemed.  "And in that day Adam blessed God and was filled, and began to prophesy concerning all the families of the earth, saying: Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the flesh I shall see God.  And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and  the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.  And Adam and Eve blessed the name of God, and they made all things known unto their sons and their daughters." (Moses 5:10-12)