1. What about Ancient Greek culture & values is reflected in their beliefs towards the underworld? 

"The Odyssey' Odysseus reflects the values of the culture that memorialize him, such as bravery, intelligence, creativity,and so forth. 

1. Do you recognize any similarities between the Greek's beliefs towards death and the underworld and those which are held in your own religion?

Greek religion, religious beliefs and practices of the ancient Hellenes. Greek religion is not the same as Greek Mythology which is concerned with traditional tales, though the two are closely interlinked. Curiously, for a people so religiously minded, the Greeks had no word for religion itself. Death, the way it is represented in Homer's book, the Odyssey is always caused by human error. 

1. The Journey of the soul is described to be an elaborate process, why do you think that is? Why can't it be more simple?

1. Looking back (to The Epic of Gilgamesh) this will be the 2nd text in which the protagonist journey to the underworld to confront death, why do you the hero "needs" to visit the underworld?

A deity who returns from the underworld demonstrates eschatological themes such as the cyclical nature of time and existence, or the defeat of death and the possibility of immortality.