I don't know that I'd call them necessary, so much as a logical stage of intellectual evolution, Going back to your article about linear thinking, versus circular thinking, gods are goals.

It just that we have to appreciate the larger cycle, of building up and breaking down, as two sides of the same coin. That signals are subjective, not absolute and the noise is their context. When people lose sight of the context, the signal becomes "meaningless."

We have spent 100's of thousands of years seeking the most productive and efficient ways to survive, so this impluse toward that goal of success, efficiency, survival, is hardwired into our physiology.

Consider that prey animals have eyes more toward the sides of their head, because it is far more important to be spatially aware and responsive to the immediate situation. While we have bifocal vision, along with the fact we are effectively designed for long distance walking, for hunting and gathering. So this goal orientedness is basic to who we, as these creatures called humans.

We just haven't, in all our focus and specialization, sat back and studied the big picture, which is cyclical and reactive.

There are two basic ways to deal with life, to focus, or to deal with the bigger picture.

Generalist and specialist. The people who would be good generalists/polymaths, are the kids who would be interested in everything that catches their attention, eventually coming to sense how all the various parts work together. Yet these days, they get diagnosed as attention deficient and medicated until their minds fit back in the box.

While specialists are better at learning all there is to know about whatever is their area of specialization. Focus. Yet not so good at understanding how all the areas work together.

The effect is this global Tower of Babel, where everyone is talking past each other and there is no sense of how all the pieces work together.

For instance, government is the central nervous system of the social organism, but those who reach positions of power don't understand the larger function of such a system is to sustain the health of the whole organism, not just chase after the various obsessions, addictions, habits, etc, of those climbing tot eh top of the greasy pole. So the poltical class ends up preying on society, not sustaining it and the system breaks down.

Now we have the is culture where everyone is trying to collect as much money as possible, seeing it as a commodity to mine from society, rather than as a social contract, that has to circulate, like blood, for a healthy society.

Which all goes back to the linear versus circular argument, with gods as the end state of the linear. The most reductionist signal imagined. Whether monotheism, or money, depending on which part of the cycle is your specialty.

It's not so much being humble, as being aware. It might seem detachment, because we can shift our attention easily. We should respect intelligence and wisdom, not worship it. Then humility is irrelevant. It only when we worship, even ourselves, that humility becomes necessary.