Your Pop-Culture Guide to the Upcoming Rapture

Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel presents scenes of bleak despair after an unknown cataclysmic event destroys the planet. A father and his son traverse the desolate, post-apocalyptic earth where only a few people remain, creating a tale of love and desperation. The book’s vivid imagery lent itself to an ... on-screen adaptation in 2010.


See the top 10 post-apocalyptic books.

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Sorry, Harold Camping. The makers of this doomsday film invested their creative efforts in the Mayan prediction of when the world will end. 2012 tells the story of a massive natural disasters that kill millions of earth's inhabitants. Watch some of the special-effects scenes to get an idea of what may be in store for you.


... href="http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1938693,00.html">See more cinematic visions of the apocalypse

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This television series provided the roots for what became an entire science fiction franchise. Though the original show only aired for one season, the legacy has lived on much longer in the form of video games, board games, books, and a remake series in the early 2000s. Following the story of survivors fleeing a recently ... destroyed planet, a rerun of this will certainly put you in post-apocalyptic spirits.

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R.E.M.'s popular song has become an anthem of the apocalypse. Though they're not the only to trill doomsday tunes, their hit single is arguably the best-known. Camping might even consider their first line prophetic: “That’s great, it starts with an earthquake."

Michael Jackson’s 14-minute music video is unsurpassed in the zombie genre and embraces the living dead to full extent. The 1983 work that artfully integrated film, choreography and music is widely considered as one of the most influential pop music videos of all time. Can't hurt if that's the last thing you watch before the ... Rapture.

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Take the apocalypse into your own hands by playing Microsoft Game Studio’s Gears of War. Acting as the intrepid soldier Marcus Fenix you can help save your planet from an imposing enemy that attacked in full force on “Emergence Day.”

In January, Six Flags Magic Mountain renamed their Terminator: Salvation rollercoaster, choosing instead to call it “Apocalypse.” But don’t worry: the name change was part of a cost-cutting initiative and its timing is unrelated to recent Judgment Day predictions.

What's now an AMC TV series started out as a comic book. The premise: a group of people trying to survive a post-apocalyptic zombie attack. Flip through the pages for entertainment, or stow it away to use as a how-to guide in a few days.

Craving some intellect and good old common sense after all the zombie-talk? Listen to the voice of reason by watching a Four Horsemen roundtable discussion featuring prominent atheists Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens in a “celebration of reason.”