Different religions have different positions on death and dying, and in cases where there is a legal dispute, often the courts will turn to the person's individual religious beliefs to determine the wishes of people who are unable to speak for themselves. So it seems logical that the Church of Reality should have some official guidelines so that if the outside world turns to the individual's religious beliefs we have a response.

When does death occur? Who gets to decide? When do you remove a person from life support? When do you assist a person in terminating life? What are the roles of individuals, their spouses, their children, their family, their church, and the government? The Church of Reality cannot answer these questions, but we can create guidelines and principles to come up with these answers and that is what we choose to do here.

Issues surrounding death and dying can become complex, especially in a society that is in denial. Sometimes people are trapped in a permanent vegetative state. Sometimes they are still alive and facing a horrible death. Sometimes they are clearly alive but face an uphill battle that they don't want to go through. Science and technology offer new choices, and, because of that, often complicate the situation allowing the body to remain alive long after death would naturally occur. Therefore it is difficult to create hard and fast rules for dying. We therefore will state general principles from which rules can be derived.