What is the meaning of human life, or for that matter the life of any creature?

To know an answer to this question means to be religious.

You ask: Does it make any sense, then, to pose this question?

I answer: The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life.

THE TRUE VALUE OF A HUMAN BEING

Albert Einstein, Mein Weltbild, Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1934.

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.

On War

Albert Einstein

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.