The nearness to God factor. How do Atheists feel about moving higher or lower?

[Fromper]

An argument can be made on the lines of this.

When we perform good actions and become better people, we ascend in stages of existence.
Ascension in stages of existence is only explained by existence of God.
Therefore God exists.

Interested in which of these two premises Atheists here have a problem with. 1 or 2? Or both?

So, looking this up in my MystickKnight-to-Atheist translation dictionary, I get this:

"I babble.
God makes me babble.
Therefore, God exists."

I'm just kidding (mostly)..

But seriously, where did you get this "stages of existence" thing from? I'm no expert on various religions or philosophies, but I like to think I'm well read enough that if it was a major part of any of the well known ones, I'd have seen it before. As is, it seems like something you completely invented yourself, and you wonder why the rest of the world doesn't agree with you.

Though it does seem slightly related to the concept of karma, so maybe you're just trying to invent a ruler that can measure karma. But since karma's a religious concept, the idea that you'd expect atheists to agree with it does seem kinda silly.

So to give you a more specific answer to the specific question asked, I definitely disagree with the first statement, at least partially because I have no idea what it means, and partially because I disagree with the parts that I do understand. This makes the 2nd statement so irrelevant that it doesn't matter whether or not I agree with it.

So let's break down that first statement:

"When we perform good actions and become better people, we ascend in stages of existence."

1. Define "good actions".
2. Define "better people". Better than what? Better in what regard? I'm assuming you're talking about morally better, but since morality is in the eye of the beholder, this goes back to my first question. Everyone will have their own definition of "good".
3. Define "stages of existence". This is the biggest part where I think you lose most people.