Atheism vs. Agnosticism

I am reading--very slowly because I havent been reading much since I got back from Costa Rica--a book called The Life of Pi. Roughly, it's about a boy who grows up in India with a family who runs this fantastic zoo. He questions faith and is on this journey of discovery to understand what he believes. He talks about atheism and agnosticism, Christianity and Hinduism. One thing I hear always over the years is that it's better to be an atheist than an agnostic because if you claim to have the knowledge of a faith, but then choose to not follow it, that's completely hypocritical and lazy. Also, atheism gets me because if you are saying that you dont believe in god/God, then arent you saying that there is something out that, but you just dont believe in it? I won't try to mask my confusion and dismay at such views. Therefore, I appreciated and found profound these two paragraphs penned by Yann Martel in the book.

"I felt a kinship with him. It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as legs of reason with carry them--and then they leap.

I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted to doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation." (page 28)