Bayle: Confucianism and China

China plays an essential role in Bayle’s philosophical work. He uses China to demonstrate that there is no necessary connection between religion and a successful society. Politics and morality do not require a religious root. Besides, the atheism of the Chinese is not merely a negative absence of belief, like that of the Americans or Africans. China is not simply a backdrop for the creation of the philosophical myth of atheism but a model for political tolerance. This is supported by the equation between Confucianism and civic religion, an idea that may have come from the works of the Jesuits. China embodies political tolerance by not imposing any obligations to adhere to a particular doctrine or participate in a specific religious ceremony. This type of toleration is a religious-political model where beliefs and rituals, the two fundamental elements of any religion, are not mandatory for the entire population.