[atrifix]

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Why can't we just use the throwing of dice? Or any other method where results are unpredictable, uncalculatable, and seeingly perfectly random? What about random number generators in computers, etc. ?

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Both of those are deterministic in the strict sense. Things like random number generators (where a computer spits out a number based on the time) are exactly the sort of thing determinists are thinking of.

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I'm sure this is a dumb question, so try to go easy on me. It just seems to me there are plenty of things without determined outcomes. Why do we need QM to disprove determinism? One other thing that bothers me...

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We don't necessarily 'need' QM to disprove determinism, but we need some kind of randomness. Newtonian mechanics indicated that everything in the universe was calculatable by means of force, mass, etc. Quantum mechanics is the first instance of genuinely random events being observed.

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If everything were in perpetual motion, determinism would make more sense to me. But there are clearly things in this universe that STOP. Unlike the billiard break example that someone gave, my car for instance, stops... And then goes again. This would seem to disrupt the notion that all is pre-determined by some antecedent event. At least to me.

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I am really confused by this example. I'm not sure why motion affects determinism. And, as I'm sure you know, when your car is "stopped", it's still in motion.