[atrifix]

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Well, wait a sec... Can you explain this to a kindergartner?

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I wish I could--I'd be one of the greatest teachers ever.
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If it doesn't go all the way back to the big bang, then how can it be true? If the first act of the universe didn't set in motion the exact "state of the world before your birth", then what did? And if there could've existed "some other state of the world before your birth", then there could've been a 3rd, and so on, until we arrive at some such state that could've altered current events. This renders any determinism null and void, no?

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Well, yes and no. Determinism as usually stated says that all events are predetermined, which presumably relates back to the big bang, or whatever else. But determinism when applied to a specific event, e.g., suppose we take an agent and observe him commit some action; then we ask, did he act freely? Our theory only needs to capture a causal link back to an event that we all agree he could not have had any choice over, which I shortened to a state of a the world before his birth. When stated broadly, this will hold for any agent. But the key point is that determinism does not make a claim about how the universe began. In other words, it's consistent with big bang theory, creationism, deism, and whatever else there is.

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I don't get "soft" determinism. Things are either determined or they aren't. We either have free will, or we don't. I don't see the space for any in between or gray area.

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Well, things may be determined, but perhaps our original idea of freedom as causal relation was in error. A soft determinist agrees that there is a causal (or causal-probabilistic) link between series of events, but denies that this causal link prohibits freedom.