"No use, was in regard to our position of sentience on this planet."
Sorry, not sure what you mean by this. Are you equating sentience with free will ?
It's difficult to discuss such questions unless the terms used are more or less defined and agreed on.
So what do we mean by "free will" since you seem to be describing it as the ability to make choices, whether moral or otherwise ?
However, making choices is not the same as exercising free will though the latter may include making choices.
"Free" will would be the ability to initiate and carry out an action that if necessary would be independent of one's inner habits, automatic reactions, programming, appetites, propensities etc etc.
We all see how often "choices" are made that don't correspond with what we intend should happen.
So the point about religions was not intended to be negative but just how it is.
How could a Religion or society lay down moral codes and instructions on how to live and behave without also claiming that the person has free will to choose whether to comply or not.
The claim of "free will" is required because people often are unable to make the correct choice for various reasons.
In practice, children are "trained" to adopt those codes and rules using carrots and sticks as help in making the right choice.
Some religions, particularly Christian, have a central practice that requires constant forgiveness and threat of "punishment" precisely because the person is unable to exercise free will to achieve the required behaviour. The practice of submitting to a greater will is also an example.
Likewise with the term automaton.
This is not intended to convey humans as robots or zombies or some such. It is merely observation that Humans live their lives and go about their daily activities almost entirely automatically according to their pre-existing habits. Various stimuli and influences come in and meet the inbuilt habits and reactions to produce a corresponding reaction. This can be a very complex blend of things but is almost entirely automatic which is not necessarily undesirable.
Trying to establish different habits and responses is one of the chief difficulties in any attempt to modify behaviour.
This involuntary and automatic response to incoming stimuli was what was meant by saying in this regard humans are no different to other animals.
I hope you notice the difference between when I'm talking about general Humanity as a species and what might be possible for individual humans.
