Well there are a couple of aspects to the fear of snakes that come into play, one is just unfortunate and likely caused by another.
I saw the recent eclipse in Missouri, specifically the Mingo National Wildlife Refuge, not due to any deliberate planning but due to it being the closest place that fit my requirements, and the final location was chosen less than an hour before Go-Time. All this is to say everything that happened afterwards is coincidental to being able to share the little adventure I went on immediately afterwards.
The refuge is a re-wilded bottomland, and by all appearances, to my myopic eyes, I would have thought I was in SC or the Great Dismal swamp. Muddy water, big ole ball cypress trees, ducks and all manner of birds everywhere, and more rustling leaves than I have ever, ever encountered in my life.
There was a couple who happened to be the only other folks around who watched the eclipse with me. They were amateur herps, ie: neither trained or having gone to school in the field. They normally come out to the Mingo a few times a year, and had recently gone on vacation to the Florida everglades for the primary purpose of... huntin snakes. After the eclipse they asked me if I wanted to go with them. Well, sure why not?
The hunting amounted to walking down an elevated strip of land that cut thru one of the boggiest sections, searching for, identifying and tallying up what they found. I was with them for around 2 hours, maybe less. They positively identified, around more than 20 individual snakes. We saw probably that many more that were too fast to get a positive ID on. It was absolutely nuts. The strip of land was no more than 20 feet wide, with water on both sides, and we weren't using binoculars, they were all either on the strip of land or in the water within a foot or so of the land.
I have seen less snakes in the past decade than I did that afternoon.
The first one they identified, required me to move my flip flops within five feet before I could finally see it in the ground clutter, a cotton mouth. That set the stage for the afternoon. Illuminating to say the least.
I never have had a fear of snakes much different than with any other critter. If the critter is aggressive or acting sketchy, that is what gets my attention. A docile black snake in the house I am far less concerned about than the pissed off possum snapping at my toes. My uncle on the other hand, otherwise a nature lover and all around biologist in everything but official title, grew up with the "only good one is a dead one" mindset. No doubt ingrained at a young age. Only in his later years, dismayed by the incongruency of his ideals versus his actions, finally started sparing the poor snakes unlucky enough to cross his path.
The female of the snake huntin pair related to me she had written a paper in college on the psychology of the fear of snakes, and had found out in the process that the human eye could more readily discriminate the scales of a snake, versus any other critter with scales, down to a minute amount, making the argument that this was an evolutionary adaptation to environmental threats. So that bases the fear in biological terms.
Then there are the sociological aspects of the fear of snakes (and this is my unoriginal unscientific opinion), most likely in modern western society originating with writings two Millinia ago, the Bible. Put those two things together and it's amazing that the poor little snakes haven't been wiped off the face of the planet.
No one should be ashamed of their fear of snakes, as it is not exactly a choice that you have, but I really encourage people to try and rationalize their actions when encountering snakes and try to minimize your impact on them the same as you would with any other aspect of the natural world. They are not inherently evil, morally corrupt or even all that particularly dangerous except for in a handful of situations, situations that are usually at least partially of our own making.
Even the poisonous ones just want to be left alone, especially in North America. The danger to us humans is when we stumble across them and put them in a situation where they feel threatened. That whole walk there wasn't a single snake that charged my bare toes, hissed at me, or chased me up and down that narrow strip of high ground as I let out a long terrified scream. It would have been a simple matter for them to if they wanted to, but they all retreated, venomous and non-venomous, any time we got too close. The reason there were so many that went unidentified was often we would get too close to them, without actually seeing them first and only became aware of their existence due to their trying to get away from us.
How many did we pass and never notice at all? Who knows. How many could have gotten the drop on us if they had wanted to? Latching on to one of my poor little bare toes? More than half I'd say. (The couple had the good sense to at least have rubber waders on)
Not once did I feel threatened by a single snake. I felt rather uneasy much of the time, but by the end of the afternoon, whatever innate fear I had of snakes, fear of their existence on this earth, had been dramatically reduced. Exposure therapy I think it could be thought of.
I don't want them in the house. I sure as heck don't want to tangle with one that is dangerous, but the same thing can be said for possums, coyotes, and raccoons.
As far as I am concerned the only animal in these here parts that I am truly terrified of is the hated deer.
Any animal that will jump out of its hiding place, in the middle of the night, to attack a 2000 pound hunk of metal moving at 70mph, is a menace.