Is The Universe Deterministic?

To answer this one must also ask whether or not the universe was created with us in mind.

If a butterfly flaps its wings, could it create a chain reaction of events that 4,000,000 years later would cause us to misplace out car keys, and in doing so, cause us to leave the house 30 seconds later than we would have, thus allowing us to miss the fatal car crash we would have otherwise be involved in? If it did, was our life meaningful enough to the universe as to determine our outcome in this rather convoluted way?

Are ripples in a pond caused by deterministic forces in the universe? Or are they caused by some random event, creating random patterns as they bounce off of the shores and criss-cross each other?

A key turning point in my life was a job I was offered in 1999. During my time there, while I was separated from my first wife, before my divorce was finalized, I met the woman who I would later marry and with whom I would start a family. Maybe my kids will grow up to be key players in human history. Was this chain of events precipitated by a decision made by someone or some force on the quantum level in the universe, or did my wife and I just impress the right people at the right times with our resumes?

Determinism equals solipsism. Examining the origin of the universe this way is a lot like tearing down a building and reconstructing it from the top down, or "hindsight is 20/20". We exist in a random soup of particles and energy. Isn't that beautiful enough?