Cofty: How can a fantasy be dead?
Obviously it can't.
Nietzsche wasn't talking about the literal death of a real being. Here is an interesting commentary from the Philosophy Index about this famous phrase:
Friedrich Nietzsche writes his famous declaration, God is dead several times throughout his works.
The meaning of the phrase is often misunderstood — many have interpereted that Nietzsche believed in a literal death or end of God. Instead, the line points to the western world’s reliance on religion as a moral compass and source of meaning. As he explains in The Gay Science (Section 125, The Madman):
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?