Not exactly sure how but it will certainly require some extreme measures!

I would recommend learning about skepticism, but not the kind you will find in the USA to be honest, the USA skepticism community has some bad actors mixed in and it is hard to get the good without the bad.

Skeptics with a K is a podcast from the Merseyside Skeptics Society and they do great work. If you start there and listen through a little they will recommend other podcasts and websites and you can go from there.

The reason I suggest them as a starting point is their attitude. They are compassionate people who see the harms of woo and religion but really so embody kindness and connection over anger and hate. They also embrace the kind of skepticism where you maintain a focus on the tools but don't get locked into extreme positions, exactly what you are talking about. They practice not running to the extremes, but not by saying things like "both sides are the same". They have convictions, but they are slow to build and carefully constructed. If you copied their mental processes you would be in a fairly good starting position.

Sounds like you're impulsive. That's not a value judgement, just an observation. It's possible to learn to control impulsivity (to a degree) through various means, such as mindfulness, meditation, and the like. It's not an overnight trick though, you'll have to keep at it and practice.

Legitimately congrats on being self aware enough to realize this is a problem you have, plenty of people never do. If you haven’t considered and have access to therapy that could help.

I would also say just learning more about different perspectives and ways of being helps kill extremism. You can not believe something but also try to understand the minds and experiences of those who do. Even if your conclusion is still ‘they are wrong’, you can at least understand what about their life and experience leads them to their beliefs, and extend to them the understanding that they are also people doing what makes sense to them according to their experiences.

This might be of interest, though it talks about some fairly severe psychological issues that hopefully don't apply to you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)

I also rush to take a label for me that I am this, this and this, and get myself limited to that specific identity.

It sounds like you know what the basic problem is: you find something, and take it as a part of your actual identity, letting it define you.

Instead of focusing on just one thing and labeling yourself with it, do many things - and have them be things that you do.

And sit down and think about what you're finding so attractive about these things, then work against that attraction. Is it because these groups offer a community? Then don't link yourself to just one community. Is it because it gives you a pre-set list of approved behaviors and opinions? Explore beyond the approved. Is it because you're not sure who you are and this makes you easier with yourself (something we all go through)? Go out and do a variety of things - do things by yourself, do them with others, go places and do things that you wouldn't normally.

Don't focus exclusively on one group or type of groups, look for a range of groups and activities. And if there's something interesting that you can't find a group for, go do it anyway, just because it interests you.

Good luck!

Buddhism. Learning to take the middle path. And maybe just learning to care less. I can relate to the extremism, but I've also learned that it rarely ever works out, so it's more efficient and less effort to move myself to a reasoned, balanced view.

There's times when an opinion should be at one end of the spectrum, other times when being at one end robs you of having something better.

A good exercise is playing devils advocate with yourself to really challenge your views.

Not to send you back to an extreme but buddhism seeks the middle way. Staying present in the moment. Im athiest but I like buddhism and don't care about rebirth stuff. There is secular buddhism that just deals with the meditation and philosophy. EDITED - I swear I wrote this before seeing the first comment recommended the same thing.

I've more or less been here too. The thing that helped the most was to try learning more. Why do people think xyz? Let me research the socioeconomic factors of this area & learn about the tenets of that belief. Or just talk to them, you know. At least ~75% of the time, if someone says something out of pocket & I ask them why they said that, it immediately becomes clear that they haven't thought about it deeply at all. A disturbingly large amount of people believe something because they heard some guy say it once. It's frustrating, but mostly just sad that people are not as educated as I had the opportunity to be, and don't seek it out. There's not always much you can do about it besides making them feel heard and encouraging doing their own research (ACTUAL research though, not confirmation bias).

No offense to you, much credit to you in fact for realizing this is an issue, but it seems like your change in mindset came from being personally affected by it. As in "if I'm gay, it must be OK I guess". To continue down your path of enlightenment, it helps to try to gain understanding of their situation & position regardless of your position. This can be particularly difficult if you ARE personally affected by it, such as people being demeaning to gay people, but it gets easier if you practice.

The thing that gets to me the most these days is people who are closed minded. Trying to be objective can help determine if the issue even matters at all, but going too far down the oath of objectivity betrays your desire for everything to be explainable and have a yes or no answer. Life, unfortunately, is not often like that. Sometimes it is, or gets close. Murder is bad. But even then, what if the guy you murdered was planning on doing something worse than killing one specific person? What if he already had? I can say "we as a society cannot accept vigilantism" while simultaneously not saying anything if I witness a known child rapist getting shot. Both diametrically opposed actions can be morally correct.

Humans love labels. They love assigning it to themselves even. The way I started to be able to grt around this is to learn more about the person to discover what kind of person they ACTUALLY are. Think of it as a fun project. Some conservatives, for example, will be the first to help you if you need a truck to move or need food. Some are part of strong unions. They are still culpable for how they vote, but boot licking corporations & victim blaming the poor is not necessarily who they ARE.

How do I avoid labels for myself? I don't worry about it so much. I can be labeled if it helps someone, or I can not be. The important thing to remember is that the actions of people who exist under the label define the label. The label doesn't define you.

Even the same label can have opposite effects or meanings in some situations. To some, being a feminist is simply treating women as fellow human beings, and a prerequisite to being a decent person. To others, it is a mask for misandry. So sure, I can be a feminist. But I will probably not advertise that label to a man whose mother abused him as a child and favored his sister under the guise of feminism. What matters is what you actually DO. Are you there for your friend who was abused? Do you respect women? Yes? Then that's what matters, not if I call myself a feminist or avoid it.

It bears repeating that religious zealots and anti-theists are two sides of the same coin. To the point where anti-theists who were religious zealots is common, like you describe. Both offer certainty, superiority, and are obsessed with out-groups and enemies. You may want to reflect if, and perhaps why those things appeal to you.