Lack of sleep, mental stress, and overeating are causes of fatigue. Fatigue can be cause by all of the above.
I feel like this question is very, very debatable. Your answer will depend on the religion you follow/ are studying or the religion that your school/teacher/family appears to encourage you to follow, as well as your personal beliefs.
The sentence that best paraphrases the first sentence of the excerpt is "You aren't telling me anything I don't know". This is because the narrator uses the metaphor of "rousing me from a deep sleep" as saying that he was aware of the situation that was going on, it wasn't that he didn't know about it.
I think the correct word is, “is”!
