> There ought to be an entire liturgy of grotesqueries, in fact—pricked fingers, names written in blood, robes, candles, chanting, obsidian blades, still-beating hearts, the whole shebang.

The idea that such ceremony induces humility may be true in a limited individual sense, in that a person may come to believe that they are nothing but their deity is everything. But at the same time it elevates the status of whoever is the current puppet master of their deity. The end result is net uptick in hubris, on behalf of their lord, whose relayed word is sufficient without any need to resort to such crudities as science or debate.