A David and Goliath struggle

When Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr (1841–1935) wrote these words in his Natural Law (1918), I wonder whether he had the Bible in mind. It seems to me that we live in an age of certainty and belief in absolute truth, and nowhere is this more apparent than among religious believers, who cling to their respective texts with a protective, and often disconcerting, zeal. Thus, many of the adherents of Islam, Judaism and Christianity not only hold that divine supervision, uniquely, favours their respective faiths but also that we are all under a permanent, supernatural surveillance. Furthermore, from time to time the faithful promote their respective scriptures as revealed truth, thus saving us the bother of working out acceptable codes of ethics and moral behaviour for ourselves.