an athiest is a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods
A heathen is a person who does not belong to a widely held religion (especially one who is not a Christian, Jew, or Muslim) as regarded by those who do.
This is the correct option:
e. neither Buddhism nor Taoism ever offered an alternative to restrictive Confucian theology.
Explanation:
During the period when the Three teachings as Taoism Confucianism and Buddhism are sometimes called existed simultaneously and influenced Chinese culture, there was considerable overlap between them.
The permeability of one school of thought with the other meant that there is a way that a person could have believed in all three at a time.
Confucianism was more of a theological way of life while Buddhism would have been the spiritual underpinning of it.
The more kids then the more help they got with work. Plus there wasn't any protection back then as we have now