Complex sentence: The phrase "God is dead" does not mean that Nietzsche believed in an actual god who first existed and then died in a literal sense; rather, that God is no longer a source of meaning or a moral compass.
Split into simpler sentences: The phrase "God is dead" does not mean that Nietzsche believed in an actual God who first existed and then died in a literal sense. Rather that, God is no longer a source of meaning or moral compass.