I don't know about distortion of religious teachings, but generally religious groups are a lot more tame today compared to the brutal nature of ancient times. The Old Testament and Quran are actually quite brutal and contains lots of contradictions. Confucianism was simply transformed from a school of thought by the ruling elites into a class system, so they can retain power. Government officials and scholars were at the top, followed by farmers. Craftsmen, traders and soldiers were looked down upon. Over time, Chinese technological and military power declined as people involved in those fields have low social status. It's not fair to blame Confucius for what later generations did to distort his teachings.
Hello @S10
I believe that there are other significant independent variables that led to the Great Divergence between Europe and Asia, that ultimately led to the Europeans to have the upper hand in technological innovation.
There are academic discourse that espouse developed economies required merchants, traders, to adhere to the enforceable rules. Some would argue that the West had the upper hand because most of the great civilizations in Asia (India, China) had created path dependencies that delayed the adoption of more formal and state enforced legal contracts of a higher stage of economic development in Asia.
Some would argue that the reason for the great divergence was the dichotomy of catalysts in Europe and Asia. Europe was largely populated and had limited natural resources, thus fueled their militaries to not only war with each other for rights to limited resources in Europe, but also to expand overseas. I mean, if we look at the developments made by Vasco De Gama, Prince Henry of Portugal, and Cristobal Colombo (Christopher Columbus) we see that these European cartographer-explorers were interested to find a route to Cathay/India. For what? To tap their much sought after resources. In a way, Europe and the West was spurred to technological development to acquire sought after resources due to the limited amount in their own shores.
If we look at the great civilizations of in the India Subcontinent, as well as in China, we see that the level of urbanization from the 16th century to the 18th century was already quite high, the expansive farming programs initiated by reigning monarchs had ensured the growth of the aristocracy, the scholar elites, namely due to the ubiquitous presence of farmers, merchants, traders. Asian civilizations were rich in natural resources, thus they didn't have the drive to expand technologically because of the lack of perceived threats. If i can cite an example of Admiral Zheng He, the famous Ming-era Eunuch who commanded the Chinese Fleet. Remember the decision of the Chinese Emperor to close the gates to the outside world was because he realized that there was nothing the outside world could offer China. This was due to the fact that China (Cathay) was already self sufficient during the time when the Great Divergence started to manifest by the 16th century. The same can be said of the Great Indian Subcontinent civilizations.
One can argue that Asia's conservatism and bullish progress during the Age of Divergence was due to the fact that Asia, as a whole, was already self reliant. Tho one can argue the role of Confucianism in delaying of development, during such times there really was not much contact with the West/ Outside World that compelled Chinese Civilizations/ Indian Civilizations to industrialize.
@Chinese-Dragon , @TaiShang , @kalu_miah , @Ravi Nair , perhaps you guys can provide some additional input on the dichotomy of development in Asia and the West during the Great Divergence ?