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You DO need to back up your statements. She said " my lifelong spiritual/religious beliefs impose on me a duty of conscience not to contribute to warfare by taking up arms", so she's being asked to back that up.
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I don't doubt that this is what they're doing - this is more likely just Beuracracy as opposed to Malice - but that's precisely the problem. The idea that this kind of conviction can only come from faith/faith-like things.
In fact, What's interesting in the second link, where it says atheists are not excluded, is the wording:
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A claimant who considers himself to an atheist does not thereby disqualify himself for conscientious objector classification, since that belief can in part be a product of faith and occupy the same place in life as normal religion occupies in the life of a religious person.
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So it seems that the only way an Atheist can get an exemption is if it's determined that the claim springs in part from FAITH.
In any case, Kontan - if you hold that it's acceptable to lie in this situation - why not just lie when you take the oath? And for that matter why don't atheists or gays or trans people just stay in the closet for their entire lives?
Oppression never goes away if it's not confronted - which I suspect is why the woman in question cited her atheism the way she did in her original letter.
The point isn' that you can just lie - the point is you shouldn't HAVE to lie.