Is agnosticism and religion (or non-religion) mutually exclusive?

Asked by livelaughlove21 (15724) January 11th, 2013 from iPhone

My own response on a recent question got me thinking. I don’t consider myself religious. I never saw a point in labeling myself a Christian or Athiest or anything else because nothing seemed to fit. So my response when asked my religion is usually to dodge it by saying “I believe what I believe.”

As I stated in the aforementioned question, I think it’s naive to believe that only one group of people is correct about their beliefs and the rest of the world is dead wrong. How could I ever really know anything that’s impossible to know? I know religion is based on belief, not necessarily knowledge, but I have a hard time believing things that we know so little about in reality.

This makes me think I may be agnostic. This was actually a little surprising to me because I didn’t know much about agnosticism until recently and, what do you know, something finally seems to fit.

I know agnosticism is not considered a religion, but what’s the distinction? The term “agnostic athiest” (which I hear a lot) confuses the hell out of me. If you don’t believe or not believe there is a higher power (or whatever), how can you ascribe to any religion or even atheism?

Then there’s the debate on whether atheism is a religion at all.

So, for those of you that are agnostic, or even if you’re not, what are your thoughts on this? Is there something I’m missing? Any gems of wisdom to instill?

Forgive me if this is a stupid question. I’m admittedly unversed (pun intended) on religious issues.