Religious communes outlived secular ones but both mostly failed

Evidence

Anthropologist Richard Sosis looked at the group survival rates of a representative set of 200 nineteenth-century utopian communities, both religious and secular. He found a striking but overwhelming pattern. The average life span of the religious communes was a mere 25 years. In 80 years, nine out of ten religious communes had disbanded. Secular communes (mostly socialist) fared even worse: they lasted for an average of 6.4 years, and nine out of ten disappeared in less than 20 years. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 26

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: The religious-vs-secular commune survival gap is key evidence for the Big Gods reading — religion itself is a survival advantage, not incidental.
• SHARE: Sosis’s exact survival numbers are worth sending to anyone working on communal/group survival or cooperative dynamics.

Related

• Costly requirements predict religious group longevity independent of other factors (similarity 0.88)
• Communes’ costly member requirements predict group survival patterns (similarity 0.86)
• Costly religious requirements statistically explain why religious communes outlasted secular ones fourfold (similarity 0.86)
• Most religions fail and vanish; only a few survive. (similarity 0.86)
• Religious group survival advantages stem from costly member requirements (similarity 0.83)
• Cost commitment, not religion per se, drives group survival advantage (similarity 0.82)
• Costly religious requirements directly explain group longevity in communes (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Costly religious requirements directly explain group longevity in communes #corroborates (0.85) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 486