Good point, Alan. Of course nakedness is fine. When one is in a state of innocence, as I think is probably pretty much the case with animals (and with very young children), then nakedness does not cause any embarrassment or self-doubt.

I think what the legend probably refers to is the arising of a kind of self-consciousness in the early humans when they passed through a certain evolutionary stage. There are clear differences between human and animal consciousness. One is that people worry about what happened yesterday and what will happen tomorrow, next week, or five years from now. Animals don't do that, they live in the present at all times. People spend a great deal of their time living mentally in either the past or the future...something that an animal would never think of doing.

This allows people to plan complicated things to do in their hypothetical futures, and to build on the stored knowledge of the past, and it has allowed the development of very complex civilizations, but it has also caused people a lot of psychological problems that animals don't have.

So a person feels ashamed of his or her nakedness under certain circumstances. An animal wouldn't do that. People also worry about not looking as good as some other person looks or having a "bad hair day". Animals probably don't do that either, they just deal with reality as it comes.

I think the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolizes a point where primitive humans separated from an animal consciousness into a more complex consciousness which began to have doubts about things like: "Is this a good thing to do or a bad thing to do? Am I a good person or a bad person? Am I worthy or unworthy? Do other people like me?" "Am I attractive?" etc...

The snake is probably the little inner voice of doubt that utters all those troubling questions that bedevil people and cause them stress and insecurity and loss of sleep....but also spur them on toward efforts and endeavours which animals simply can't be bothered with.

It's both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it casts you out of the "Garden" (a natural state of innocence and simplicity). On the other hand, it gives you the chance to rise to a much higher level of consciousness and to take on far greater challenges.

So there's a price for that. And there are rewards for that.

It's a greater victory to attain truth and goodness AFTER the loss of innocence than it is just to remain unconsciously in truth and goodness by remaining innocent, like an animal or a very young child.

Maybe that's why we became human. We wanted a greater challenge and a greater victory. I would definitely go for that if I had the chance, and I would eat the fruit of that tree.