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A claim of religious conscience, is made from the conviction that one's eternal life is dependent upon this decision.
This may be true in theory, but I really doubt that this is the rationale behind decisions on an individual level. I have Muslim friends who occasionally, for conveniences sake, forgo fasting sometimes. Theoretically, this is a black mark against their eternal souls, but it doesn't seem to bother them very much. I'd say that there are often other factors behind a claim for exemption from laws, and very often the religiously motivated argument is just secondary to the actual reasons.