Well there is no issue with Christians, apples and 'Adam and Eve': if you actually read Genesis there is no mention of apples at all. Medieaval Western artists used an apple to illustrate the fruit, but the Bible does not claim that the tree corresponded to any known species.
In the UK there has been controversy about statues or naming of buildings after individuals who obtained their wealth through the slave trade. It doesn't have the same resonance here, because of a different history, but it does happen.
But when it comes to statues, many of the civil war monuments that have been a subject of controversy were actually erected long after the civil war itself. The period when the largest number of monuments was erected was the Jim Crow period at beginning of the 20th century. There was another, though smaller, spike in monument building between the mid 50s to the mid 60s, i.e. the time of the civil rights movement. In other words, many of these were built during periods of white supremacist ascendency or reaction. So whatever those monuments mean to you now, I suspect that those who claim that many of them originally had a racist motivation have a point.
When you say the 'stars and bars' do you mean the actual stars and bars (the first flag of the confederacy)? I thought that controversy was more commonly associated with the flag on the car Mike posted above (the 'Southern Cross', amongst other names), which has unfortunately been adopted by some racist groups (as well as others). That is the problem with symbols: they can be tainted by associations, which might be painful for those to whom they have other meanings. To give a British example, the St George Cross (the national flag of England) is mainly seen in the hands of football fans (what you would call 'soccer') and far-right thugs. The first can be seen as a symbol of unity, the second a symbol of hate and division. This means that when I see it without knowing the context I'm likely to have mixed feelings, and suspect that I'd have even stronger reservations if I were not white. So again, whatever the symbol means to you, there may be legitimate reasons why others would feel uncomfortable with it. The question is really whether there is a practical way of wresting the symbol away from those who would misuse it?
Mind you, the culture around flags is different here. When in the USA I often see people flying flags on their houses, whereas the British would regard anyone who flies a flag on their house as a bit of a nutter...
