Is God dead?

"Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the marketplace and cried incessantly, I seek God. As many of those who do not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Why? Did he get lost? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Is he going on a voyage or emigrated? Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his glances. Wither is God, he cried? I shall tell you. We have killed him, you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained this earth from it's sun? Wither is it moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continuously backwards, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as though through an infinite nothing? Didi we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night and more night coming on all the while, must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the grave diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? God's, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead, and we have killed him. How shal we, the murderer of all murderers, comfort ourselves? What was holiest and more powerful 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 game shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed to great for us? Must we not ourselves become God simply to seem worthy of it?"
F. Nietzsche