Confucianism

[Panhan]

I've created this thread to find out what your opinions of Confucianism. First I'll provide some information about by background. My direct family line are currently living in China and I visit annually. I was born in England and experienced a very multi-religious education, I was taught to appreciate the Jewish, Muslim and Christian religions.

Now to the point, I rank Confucius as one of the most influential person who ever existed. I will excuse the majority of this forum because you can't read or write mandarin therefore meaning you can't read or fully appreciate the works of Confucius. But if you do a little research (be careful there are many misleading sites and I can't really provide you with good sources as it is something you experience rather than learn in my opinion). The essential point in my opinion is that Confucius basically teaches the same messages of Jesus excluding all the points about god (in terms of morality). Confucius was born before Christ and managed to amass more followers than Jesus ever did in his life-time.

Thoughts and comments on Confucius and Confucianism? I am not here to preach but I am saying that there is a very, very viable alternative soceity that can be compared with the Christian soceity. However I do not wish this thread to deteriorate down to an argument of East vs. West or communism.
Keep it clean and I'm very interested in seeing your responses.