Confucius is the most famous sage of China. More than any other single man, he, through his followers, produced the principle basis of the Chinese tradition of ethics and political theory that had thus deeply influenced Chinese society and culture. Over the centuries, this influence spread also to Korea, Japan and other countries. Confucianism is wholly considered more of an ettiical philosophy than a religion. However, it is debatable if the system founded by Confucius should be called a religion, it prescribes a great deal of ritual, but little of this can be interpreted as worship or meditation in a formal sense； and Confucius occasionally made statements about the existence of other-worldly beings that sound agnostic to western ears.